Concerning the claim that the first rakʿah (cycle) of the Fajr prayer should be lengthened:

He states, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to make the first rakʿah longer than the second in every prayer, and at times he prolonged it until no footstep could be heard.”

I reply: Nothing of this sort has been transmitted about the Fajr rakʿah in particular, nor about every prayer in general; it is reported only for the Ẓuhr prayer. Abū Dāwūd and Aḥmad narrate—through an unnamed man—from ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī Awfā that the Prophet ﷺ would stand in the first rakʿah of Ẓuhr until no footfall could be heard.

The report is weak, for the man in the chain is unidentified. See Nayl al-Awṭār 3/117; I have traced it in al-Irwāʾ 513 and in Ḍaʿīf Abī Dāwūd 143.

He also says, “That is because the Qur’an recited at Fajr is witnessed—witnessed by Allah, exalted be He, and by His angels.”

I say: The angels’ witnessing is indeed sound and firmly established from him ﷺ, but Allah’s witnessing occurs only in the marfūʿ hadith of Abū al-Dardāʾ, recorded by Ibn Naṣr in Qiyām al-Layl, p. 36, and by Ibn Jarīr in his Tafsīr. In its chain appears Ziyādah, transmitting from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb al-Quraẓī; Ziyādah is munkar al-ḥadīth, as al-Bukhārī and others have noted. Ibn Kathīr (3/54) observed that Ziyādah is alone in reporting this narration. Al-Dhahabī, after citing it in Ziyādah’s biographical entry, remarked: “These are objectionable wordings reported by no one but Ziyādah.”

He further says: “As for the Divine Descent—does it last until the Fajr prayer is completed, or only until daybreak? Both wordings have come down.”

By “Divine Descent” he means the Prophet’s ﷺ statement: “Allah descends every night to the lowest heaven when the last third of the night remains and says: ‘Who is calling upon Me so that I may answer him? Who is asking of Me so that I may give to him? Who is seeking My forgiveness so that I may forgive him?’” This hadith is authentic and mutawātir, transmitted by a number of