With regard to the Witr prayer, he writes under the heading “The qunūt in Witr”: “It is prescribed to perform qunūt in Witr throughout the entire year, for Aḥmad, the compilers of the Sunan, and others have transmitted the ḥadīth of Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—in which he said: ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ taught me some words to say in Witr: “O Allah, guide me among those You have guided … You are Blessed, our Lord, and Exalted, and may Allah send blessings upon the Prophet Muḥammad.”’

I say: Two remarks are in order here.

First: Citing the complete wording of this report as coming from all the authorities just mentioned is a mistake, for the concluding phrase “and may Allah send blessings upon the Prophet Muḥammad” is found only in al-Nasāʾī’s version and in none of the others.

Second: That very addition at the end is weak and cannot be established, as Ibn Ḥajar, al-Qasṭallānī, and al-Zarqānī have all noted; its chain contains unknown narrators and a break in transmission. If you wish, consult the detailed discussion in al-Talkhīṣ and Sharḥ al-Mawāhib. Nevertheless, we do not regard the phrase as objectionable, since the early generations acted upon it, as I clarified in Talkhīṣ Ṣifat al-Ṣalāh.

He also says: “The qunūt in the Dawn Prayer is not prescribed except in times of tribulation; in such circumstances one performs qunūt in it and in the other prayers as well … The Shāfiʿī school, however, considers qunūt in the Dawn Prayer to be a sunnah.”

I comment: He then cited two ḥadīths to support them. One of them is authentic, but he interpreted it as referring to the qunūt for calamities—and that is correct. The other explicitly states that the Prophet ﷺ continued making qunūt in the Fajr Prayer until he departed this world; he judged that report weak, and in this he was also correct. Yet it seems he then backtracked, for he concluded his discussion by saying: “In any case, this is a matter of permissible disagreement in which doing or leaving the practice are equivalent—although the best guidance is the guidance of Muḥammad ﷺ.”