Points of Note:
First: Ibn Kathir’s statement, “Ahmad alone narrated it,” means that none of the compilers of the Six Books narrated it. This is an error, for, as you have seen from our documentation of its sources, some of them did in fact narrate it.
Second: Al-Hakim’s authentication of the hadith, despite his explicit statement that some of its narrators are unknown, shows that his method was to authenticate hadiths containing unknown narrators. In this respect, he was like Ibn Hibban. Bear this in mind, for it will benefit you in research and verification, if Allah Most High wills.
Third: In one transmission, al-Hakim added, through Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Hibban al-Ansari: Muhammad ibn al-Sabah al-Jurjurai narrated to us; Marwan ibn Mu‘awiyah al-Fazari narrated to us; Abu al-Malih narrated to us through his chain of transmission: “...Allah surely becomes angry with one who does not ask Him, and no one besides Him does this—that is, in relation to supplication.”
I thought that this addition had been interpolated into the hadith by al-Jurjurai or al-Ansari, for I was unfamiliar with him. Al-Fazari was one of Ahmad’s shaykhs in the hadith under discussion, and Ahmad was a mountain in precision and memorization; yet he did not mention this addition on his authority, although trustworthy narrators had corroborated him, as mentioned above. For this reason, I included the hadith with this addition in al-Da‘ifah (The Weak Hadiths), no. 4040.
The hadith also has two corroborating reports: one from Anas and another from al-Nu‘man ibn Bashir.
- As for the hadith of Anas, it is related by Hammad ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kalbi, from al-Mubarak ibn Abi Hamzah, from al-Hasan, from Anas, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in what he relates from his Lord, Exalted is He: “O son of Adam, if you ask Me, I shall give you; and if you do not ask Me, I shall become angry with you.” Al-Tabarani transmitted it in al-Du‘a’ (Supplication), no. 24.