The hadith of Ibn 'Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) heard a man saying: "Labbaik on behalf of Shubrumah."

The Shaykh : And upon this is based the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) hear a man performing the talbiyah while saying: "Labbaik, O Allah, on behalf of Shubrumah." So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . He said: "A brother of mine, or a relative of mine." So he (peace and blessings be upon him) approved his performing Hajj on behalf of this Shubrumah, but for a wisdom that Allah wills. It has escaped the narrator of this hadith—whether Ibn 'Abbas or whoever is below him in the chain—to accurately record the text of the pilgrim's answer to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding "Shubrumah." This is a point of extreme subtlety, and I have not found any of the commentators, or among those I have met with whom we have discussed, who noticed this point, indeed this subtle point. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) asked the man: "Who is Shubrumah?" One narration says that he said: "A brother of mine or a relative of mine." It is not correct for the one being asked by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) to answer with this hesitant response. If I were to say to one of you that I heard him performing the talbiyah on behalf of so-and-so: "Who is this so-and-so?" and he answered me with this response: "A brother of mine or a relative of mine," I would criticize him and say to him: "My brother, what are we doing now with politics that you are concealing the identity of this person from me? Tell me: Who is he, my brother? Specify the answer for me; because I need to know whether it is permissible for you to perform Hajj on his behalf or not?" Therefore, the answer of the one being asked by the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) must have been very specific, such as saying: "This is my father," or "my brother," or "my mother," or "my sister," or any other person. As for it being said: "He is a brother of mine or a relative of mine"; this is not from the one being asked by the Messenger directly, but rather this came from one of the narrators, and it escaped him to record the answer issued by the one being asked by the Messenger (peace be upon him).
And therefore, we still do not know—and will not know—for a wisdom that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) wills—the identity of this person who is Shubrumah. However, the rules of the Shari'ah prevent a questioner here from asking, or a speaker from saying: "So there is something here that has been lost from the Muslims!" We say: No; because the secondary issues are not something that a person can encompass with knowledge, especially these secondary issues in which the later scholars from the various schools of jurisprudence have expanded; they are in the thousands, if not millions. It is not possible for a person to encompass them, but rather they are encompassed by those legal and foundational principles, some of which our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) specified in His Book and our Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in his Sunnah, and others which the scholars have derived. So now, here we do not know the identity of this person, so we assume that he was like the father of that Khath'ami woman who was unable to perform Hajj, so she performed it on his behalf. We assume that he bequeathed that Hajj be performed on his behalf. If we assume that he was occupied with trade and his wealth, this is difficult to imagine in the time of Prophethood and Messengership. Just as it is extremely difficult to imagine that there was someone in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him) who would abandon prayer; because the time there was the purest time that has ever existed on the face of the earth, absolutely. So do we imagine a person abandoning prayer in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him), just as we imagine that there must be a procedure for dropping a prayer as the later scholars do?! Or someone intentionally and deliberately abandoning Hajj, so we perform a substitute Hajj on his behalf as they also do today? This is very difficult to imagine.