يحيى بن إسماعيل (report 2146; identity unresolved)

And Ahmad ibn Muhammad informed us; he said: Yahya ibn Ismaʿil related to me by reading to him; he said: Jaʿfar ibn ʿAli related to us; he said: Ismaʿil ibn ʿAyyash related to us—the wording of Ibn al-Mundhir—from Abu Hanifa, from Hammad, from Ibrahim, from ʿAlqama, may God have mercy on them, from ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿud, may God be pleased with him; he said: The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, used to teach us to seek God's choice in a matter just as he taught one of us a sura of the Qurʾan. He said: When one of you intends a matter, let him perform ablution, then pray two units, then say: O God, I seek Your choice through Your knowledge and seek ability through Your power, and ask of Your bounty. For You know and I do not know; You are able and I am not able; and You are the Knower of unseen things. [O God,] if this matter [is] good for me in my religion, good [for me] in myself, and good for me in the outcome of my affairs, make it easy for me, then bless it for me. If something else is better for me, decree good for me wherever it is, then make me content with it.