Its chain includes Ashʿath ibn Sawār al-Kindī, who, as noted in Taqrīb, is weak. Ibn Ḥazm did not cite the report, while Ibn Abī Shaybah transmitted it in al-Muṣannaf 1/349.
His statement: “Uncovering the head in prayer: Ibn ʿAsākir relates from Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet ﷺ would sometimes remove his qalansuwah (skullcap) and place it as a sutrah in front of him.”
I say: this ḥadīth cannot be used as proof for praying bare-headed for two reasons:
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It is a weak report. The fact that Ibn ʿAsākir alone transmitted it is enough to show this; I have exposed its flaw in al-Ḍaʿīfa, 2538.
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Even if it were sound, it would still not support an unrestricted license to uncover the head, for its outward sense is that he did so only when no other object was available to serve as a sutrah, and securing a sutrah takes precedence in light of the numerous aḥādīth on that point.
What I hold in this issue is that praying while bare-headed is disliked. It is universally acknowledged that a Muslim is encouraged to enter the prayer in the finest Islamic appearance, in keeping with the ḥadīth cited earlier in this book: “…for Allah is worthier that one adorn himself for Him.” According to the understanding of the early generations, it was never considered proper etiquette to make a habit of exposing the head, to walk about so in the streets, or to enter places of worship in that state. Rather, this is a foreign custom that slipped into many Muslim lands when the unbelievers entered them and imported their corrupt habits; Muslims then imitated them and, through this and similar practices, squandered their Islamic identity. Such a passing veneer is no justification for contravening the earlier Islamic norm, nor can it be taken as evidence for the permissibility of entering the prayer bare-headed.
As for the argument advanced by some of our brothers from the Ansār al-Sunnah in Egypt—who deem it permissible by analogy with the pilgrim’s uncovered head during Hajj—it is among the most invalid analogies I have ever read from them. Uncovering the head in Hajj is an Islamic rite, a distinctive act of that worship which no other ritual shares; and if it were