Immediate Answer to His Duʿāʾ: The Rain and the Mother of Abū Hurayrah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The eighth category is duʿāʾ answered on the spot, he makes the supplication and its effect is seen at once.

❧The rain, and then its stopping

Recorded in every book of ḥadīth: Medina had suffered drought for months when, during a Khuṭbah, a Bedouin interrupted, "Yā RasūlAllāh, we have had no rain for months; our crops wither, our animals die, our children starve; pray to Allāh for rain." Anas, the narrator, says they had not seen a wisp of cloud in months; yet as the Prophet ﷺ raised his hands, a cloud dense as a great shield came racing from behind the mountain of Medina, and before he had lowered his hands they heard the rain drumming on the roofs. It did not stop for a week; they did not see the sun. The next Friday, in the rain, a man came again, "our crops are flooded, our children drowning; pray that it stop." So he ﷺ said, اللَّهُمَّ حَوَالَيْنَا وَلَا عَلَيْنَا, "O Allāh, around us and not upon us", and pointed to the sky, and wherever he pointed the clouds parted, until by the end of the Khuṭbah there was nothing but sun.

❧The mother of Abū Hurayrah

Abū Hurayrah, a Yemeni who lived among the People of the Ṣuffah, had brought his still-pagan mother to Medina, and she would revile the Prophet ﷺ and curse Islam until her son came weeping: "Yā RasūlAllāh, I cannot bear what she says of you, pray that Allāh guide her." He ﷺ raised his hands: "O Allāh, guide the mother of Abū Hurayrah." Abū Hurayrah went home despairing, and found the door barred, his mother calling out that she was bathing. It was the bath of Islam: as he entered she declared, أَشْهَدُ أَنْ لَا إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا اللَّهُ وَأَشْهَدُ أَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ. One moment cursing, the next the shahādah, in the time it took to walk to the masjid and back. Badr belongs here too (the duʿāʾ against the Meccan host), and Ṭāʾif, where he declined the angel of the mountains.