and the like; for each of these is deemed a fixed-number prayer solely because the Prophet ﷺ kept to it consistently, not because he expressly forbade adding to it. Consequently, relying on the unqualified or general hadiths that urge abundant prayer does not entitle one to exceed the number that his ﷺ practice did not adopt. I demonstrated this in Salat al-Tarawih in an important discussion that I buttressed with citations from several eminent imams, all of which conclude that the unrestricted texts cannot be invoked once the Prophet’s ﷺ own practice has restricted them. There I said:
“Anyone who does so is like a person who performs a prayer that differs from the Prophet’s ﷺ prayer in both form and quantity, invoking those unrestricted texts as proof—such as someone who, for example, performs five¹ rakʿahs for the sunnah of Dhuhr, four for the sunnah of Fajr, or offers a single rakʿah containing two bowings and two prostrations. The unsoundness of this is plain to any rational mind.”
Earlier I also quoted the jurist al-Haytami as stating that it is impermissible either to add to or to omit from Witr or from the sunnah of Dhuhr. Consult that citation and the summary I provided for you in the aforementioned book, for it is extremely important.
On this occasion I say:
Shaykh Ismaʿil al-Ansari has composed a treatise in reply to the book just mentioned, yet—alas, contrary to the good opinion I had of him—it exhibits neither fairness nor sound knowledge. He went to great lengths in his rebuttal, adducing proofs that he himself knows to be unfounded, and stubbornly dismissing the many evidences I advanced for not exceeding eleven rakʿahs, without addressing them at all—merely to conform to current practice in the Tarawih prayer and to satisfy the public and others besides them. Worse still, he went so far as to attribute to me statements I never made, precisely the behaviour of people of whims and innovation.