Regarding the istiʿādhah: Ibn al-Munḏir said, “It has been reported from the Prophet ﷺ that he used to say before recitation, ‘I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan.’”

I say: I have not found this wording in any of the well-known ḥadith collections except what appears in the Marāsil of Abū Dāwūd, where al-Ḥasan relates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ would seek refuge, and then he mentioned it.

Even then the report is weak, for it is one of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī’s mursal narrations, and it contains no indication that this formula was uttered inside the prayer. Therefore, it is preferable to seek refuge with the wording found in the ḥadith of Jubayr b. Muṭʿim, and to add from time to time the phrase “the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing,” as occurs in certain narrations—such as the ḥadith of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and others with a sound chain; both are cited in Irwāʾ 342. Al-Bayhaqī mentions no other reports in this chapter.

Concerning the ruling that the istiʿādhah is prescribed only in the first rakʿah and not in the others, the author writes: “The safest course is to confine oneself to what is reported in the Sunnah, namely seeking refuge before the recitation of the first rakʿah only.”

I respond: The Sunnah to which he alludes is not explicit on this point, for Abū Hurayrah’s statement in the ḥadith quoted in the book—“and he did not pause”—is not plainly intended to negate every kind of pause. What appears more likely is that he meant the well-known pause he used to make, namely the lengthy pause in which he recited the opening supplication mentioned earlier (p. 266). That is the pause negated in this narration. As for the slight pause for the istiʿādhah and basmalah, it is so brief that the follower does not notice it, being occupied with rising for the next rakʿah.

Imām Muslim—may Allah have mercy on him—hinted at what we have stated: the pause negated in this ḥadith is the very pause affirmed in the earlier ḥadith of Abū Hurayrah. He transmitted the first report and then placed this one after it; both come from Abū Hurayrah through the same chain, so each completes the other, to the extent that they read as though they were a single narration. Thus it becomes clear that the ḥadith