The first report was declared authentic by al-Tirmidhī 3410, Ibn Khuzaymah 752, al-Ḥākim 1/253, and al-Dhahabī.

As for the author’s phrase “the tahlīl,” nothing is immediately understood from it except the utterance lā ilāha illā Allāh, for that is exactly what the language denotes, as Lisān al-ʿArab states. To add anything beyond that would require a specific text in this context, and none exists. This point slipped past the annotator of Zad, who merely quoted and documented the ḥadīth and stopped there.

Thus, the apparent purport of the ḥadīth is that one says: “subḥānallāh, al-ḥamdu lillāh, lā ilāha illā Allāh, and Allāhu akbar” twenty-five times each, and it does not matter with which of them one begins. Allah knows best.

13 – ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever, before standing up and before folding his legs after the Maghrib and Fajr prayers, says: lā ilāha illā Allāh waḥdahu lā sharīka lah, lahu’l-mulk wa lahu’l-ḥamd, bi-yadihi’l-khayr, yuḥyī wa yumīt, wa huwa ʿalā kulli shayʾin qadīr (‘There is no deity but Allah alone, without partner; His is the dominion and His is the praise; in His hand is all good; He gives life and causes death, and He is over all things competent’)…” — Aḥmad recorded it, while al-Tirmidhī transmitted a similar wording that omits the phrase bi-yadihi’l-khayr.

I say: al-Tirmidhī judged it “ḥasan, singular, and sound (ḥasan gharīb ṣaḥīḥ),” but his authentication is debatable, for it comes through the narration of Shahr ibn Ḥawshab from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ghanm—pronounced with fatḥ, as al-Ḥāfiẓ noted on p. 59—and Shahr vacillated in both the chain and the wording when transmitting from Ibn Ghanm:

• As for the chain, he sometimes says: “from Ibn Ghanm” as a marfūʿ report. Because Ibn Ghanm’s Companionship is disputed, this renders the report mursal; this is the version of Aḥmad 4/227.
• At other times he says: “from him, from Abū Dharr, marfūʿ”; this is the version of al-Tirmidhī and likewise of al-Nasāʾī in ʿAmal al-Yawm wa’l-Laylah no. 12.
• On yet another occasion he reports: “from him, from Muʿādh”; this is al-Nasāʾī’s version 126.
• And elsewhere he says: “from him, from Fāṭimah (may Allah be pleased with her)”; this is the wording recorded by Aḥmad 6/