“Seek water until the end of the prayer time; if you find no water, then perform dry ablution and pray.”

I say: Thus, as a report attributed only to the Companion, its chain of transmission is weak. Its defect lies in this al-Ḥārith—namely, Ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Aʿwar—for he is weak. This is why al-Bayhaqī said immediately afterward: “This has not been authentically established from ʿAlī. We follow what is authentically established from Ibn ʿUmar, and it is supported by the apparent meaning of the Quran.”

2630 — “Seek me first at the Bridge. He said: ‘What if I do not find you at the Bridge?’ He said: ‘Seek me at the Balance.’ He said: ‘What if I do not find you at the Balance?’ He said: ‘Then seek me at the Basin, for I shall not be absent from any of these three stations.’”

Al-Tirmidhī (2/70), Aḥmad (3/178), and al-Ḍiyāʾ al-Maqdisī in al-Aḥādīth al-Mukhtārah (fol. 242/1–2) narrated it through Ḥarb ibn Maymūn al-Anṣārī, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, who said: Al-Naḍr ibn Anas ibn Mālik narrated to us from his father, who said: “I asked the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, to intercede on the Day of Resurrection. He said: ‘I shall do so.’ I said: ‘Messenger of Allah, where should I seek you?’ He said: ‘Seek me...’” — the hadith.

Al-Tirmidhī said: “A good, singular hadith; we know it only through this route.” Al-Mundhirī concurred with him in al-Targhīb (4/211), as did al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar in al-Fatḥ (11/405). Its narrators are trustworthy and are among Muslim’s transmitters, for he transmitted another hadith from this Ḥarb in “Foods” (6/121); all its other narrators are among those used by both al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Moreover, he is undisputedly trustworthy, except for an error made by some concerning this. Therefore, the matter must be carefully examined. I say: al-Dhahabī said in al-Mīzān: