Permissible Matters During the Prayer
Among the rulings he places under this heading, the author cites—under no. 2—his statement:
“From Abū al-Dardāʾ (may Allah be pleased with him), traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: ‘O people, beware of turning your head, for the one who turns has no prayer. If you are overcome by it in voluntary prayers, then do not be so in the obligatory ones.’ ” He says that Aḥmad narrated it.
I say: Two objections arise.
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In al-Musnad 6/442–443 the report is mawqūf, not marfūʿ. The mistake occurred because Aḥmad, with his chain, first transmitted from Abū al-Dardāʾ a marfūʿ ḥadīth already discussed on p. 262, after which he added: “Abū al-Dardāʾ said: ‘O people, beware of turning your head ….’” The compiler failed to note the phrase “Abū al-Dardāʾ said,” and assumed these words were part of the Prophet’s statement. Reflect on this.
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The isnād is weak: it contains a narrator who is, by unanimous agreement, unknown. I have quoted the scholars’ comments on him when discussing the aforementioned ḥadīth.
It is true that al-Mundhirī and al-Haythamī cited the narration—through al-Ṭabarānī’s route—from Abū al-Dardāʾ as marfūʿ, yet both declared it weak.
He further states:
“From Anas, who said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to me, ‘Beware of turning your head during the prayer, for turning in the prayer is ruin. If you must do so, then let it be in a voluntary prayer, not in an obligatory one.’ ” He adds that al-Tirmidhī authenticated it.
I say: Two objections arise here as well.
- Al-Tirmidhī did not authenticate it. No recension of Sunan al-Tirmidhī carries such a grading, as the distinguished editor Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir has pointed out; rather, in some copies he wrote: