Then he said: “2 – Also from her: the Prophet ﷺ used to say, ‘How excellent these two sūrahs are! He would recite them in the two rakʿahs—Qul yā ayyuhāʾl-kāfirūn (Say, “O unbelievers”) and Qul huwaʾllāhu aḥad (Say, “He is Allah, the One”).’” Reported by Aḥmad and Ibn Mājah.

I say: In every printed edition the wording appears as “he used to recite…,” but this is a mistake; the verb “used to” should be omitted, for what follows completes the Prophet’s ﷺ own statement: “How excellent these two sūrahs are—one recites them….” This is exactly how the ḥadith appears in Ibn Mājah (1/351, al-Tāziyah ed.), in Aḥmad (6/239), and likewise in Ibn Khuzaymah’s Ṣaḥīḥ, 1114, and in Ibn Ḥibbān, 610 (Mawārid).

Note: Ibn Khuzaymah adds before the ḥadith the words: “He used to pray four rakʿahs before Ẓuhr and two rakʿahs before ʿAṣr, never leaving them. She said: and he would say…,” after which he quoted the report. The same addition appears in Aḥmad, but there it reads “before Fajr,” which is the correct wording; what is in Ibn Khuzaymah is a typographical error—Allah knows best.

Concerning the supplication after finishing the two rakʿahs, al-Nawawī said in al-Adhkār: “We have transmitted in the book of Ibn al-Sunnī, from Abū al-Malīḥ … from his father, that he prayed the two rakʿahs of Fajr and that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed two light rakʿahs nearby; then he heard him, while seated, saying: ‘O Allah, Lord of Jibrīl, Isrāfīl, Mīkāʾīl and Muḥammad the Prophet ﷺ, I seek refuge in You from the Fire’—three times. And we have likewise transmitted therein from Anas, from the Prophet ﷺ, that he said: ‘Whoever, on the morning of Friday before the dawn prayer, says three times, “I seek the forgiveness of Allah—there is no god but He, the Ever-Living, the Self-Sustaining—and I repent to Him,” Allah, Exalted is He, will forgive his sins even if they were as abundant as the foam of the sea.’”

I say: Both ḥadiths are exceedingly weak; it is impermissible to act upon them, even for those who allow weak ḥadiths in matters of virtue, because of the severity of their weakness. Al-Nawawī—and thus the author—deserves censure for citing them without any critical remark, thereby suggesting that it is permissible to act upon them.