A baseless narration about the excellence of fasting
19-10-2009 | IslamWeb
Question:
Is it a correct Hadith?
Once Moosa (AS) asked Allah Ta'ala: O Allah ! You have granted me the honor and privilege of talking to you directly, Have you given this privilege to any other person? Allah Ta'ala replied, O!! Moosa during the last period I am going to send an ummat, who will be the Ummat of Mohammed (SAW) with dry lips, parched tongues, emaciated body with eyes sunken deep into their sockets, with livers dry and stomachs suffering the pangs of hunger- will call out to me (in dua) they will be much much closer to me than you O Moosa! while you speak to me there are 70000 veils between you and me but at the time of iftaar there will not be a single veil between me and the fasting Ummati of Mohammed (SAW) O!! Moosa I have taken upon myself the responsibility that at the time of iftaar I will never refuse the dua of a fasting person!
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His Slave and Messenger.
We have not found this Hadeeth in any of the reliable books of Hadeeth. In Islamqa.com which is supervised by Shaykh Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajjid, it is briefly written:
"This Hadeeth is not part of the Prophet’s Sunnah, and it is not something that is known to the scholars of Hadeeth in their books and Musnads. It is not narrated except in a few books whose authors filled them with fabricated narrations, false reports, stories and myths. Moreover, in the text of this Hadeeth there is something which indicates that it is Munkar (i.e. a weak narration which goes against another authentic narration), which is the words “I will be much closer to one of them than you” – referring to Moosa (Moses) 
. It is well known in Islamic creed that the Messengers and Prophets are better than all other humans, and Moosa is one of the Messengers of strong will, so how is it possible that Allaah is closer to His slaves than to His Prophet Moosa of whom He Said (what means): {And We called him from the side of the mount at [his] right and brought him near, confiding [to him].}[Quran 19:52]? Ibn ‘Abbaas, may Allaah be Pleased with him, said: "He drew so close that he heard the scratching of the Pen, i.e. writing the Torah." To sum up: The Hadeeth mentioned is not in any of the reliable books, so it is not permissible to attribute it to the Messenger of Allaah, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, or to believe in what it says.” End of quote.