Among the rulings that pertain to the eclipse prayer:

He states, “The scholars are unanimously agreed that the eclipse prayer is a confirmed sunnah for both men and women.”

I say: Two observations must be made here.

First: The claim of consensus is disproven. Abū ʿAwānah, in his Ṣaḥīḥ 2/398, entitles a section bayānu wujūbi ṣalāt al-kusūf (“A clarification that the eclipse prayer is obligatory”) and then cites several sound hadiths commanding it, such as the Prophet’s ﷺ words: fa-idhā raʾaytumūhā fa-ṣallū (“When you see it, then pray”).

The same tendency appears in Ibn Khuzaymah’s Ṣaḥīḥ, where he writes 2/308: bāb al-amr bi-l-ṣalāh ʿinda kusūf al-shams wa-l-qamar… (“Chapter: The command to pray when the sun or the moon is eclipsed…”). He likewise records a number of hadiths that enjoin the prayer, and it is well known from Ibn Khuzaymah’s methodology that whenever, in his view, a command does not imply obligation he explicitly states so in his chapter headings. Thus the matter is indeed contested.

Al-Ḥāfiẓ remarks in Fatḥ al-Bārī 2/527: “The majority maintain that it is a confirmed sunnah, while Abū ʿAwānah, in his Ṣaḥīḥ, declared it obligatory. I have not found this position elsewhere, save what is reported from Mālik that he treated it like the Friday prayer. Al-Zayn ibn al-Munīr related that Abū Ḥanīfah made it compulsory, and some Ḥanafī authors have likewise stated that it is obligatory.”

I say: This latter view is the stronger one in light of the evidence that will follow.