Issue: According to the view that prayer is performed for every frightening sign, is this obligatory, as it is for an eclipse?

Answer: Analogy would suggest that it is obligatory, but I do not think that it is obligatory.

If one performs three, four, or five bowings in each prayer cycle, that is permissible.

His statement, “If one performs,” means: the one praying.

His statement, “in each prayer cycle, three, four, or five bowings, that is permissible,” is based on the report that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, “performed three bowings in a single prayer cycle.” Muslim recorded it (1). However, this narration is singular. The reason for its singularity is that it contradicts what al-Bukhari and Muslim both agreed upon: that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, “performed the eclipse prayer with only two bowings in each prayer cycle” (2). It is unanimously agreed that an eclipse occurred during the Prophet’s lifetime only once, and that he prayed for it only once.

Accordingly, the preserved report is that he performed two bowings in each prayer cycle; anything additional to that is singular, because it is a report in which a reliable narrator contradicts narrators who are more authoritative.

However, it is established from Ali ibn Abi Talib—may Allah be pleased with him—that “he performed four bowings in each prayer cycle” (3). Thus, this is from the sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. This depends on the length of the eclipse: if we know that the eclipse will last a long time, there is nothing wrong with performing three—