He then said: “He would clear his throat during the prayer. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib stated: ‘I had an hour of the day in which I would visit the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; whenever I went to him … if he was praying he would clear his throat …’ This was mentioned by al-Nasāʾī and Aḥmad.”

I say: This ḥadīth is weak and provides no proof. It suffers from three defects: the weakness of its narrator, confusion in its chain, and inconsistency in its wording. In one version the phrase is “he said Subḥān Allah” instead of “he cleared his throat.” Because of this al-Bayhaqī and others declared it weak, and al-Nawawī said in al-Majmūʿ: “Its weakness is plainly evident.” I clarified his statement while critiquing the book al-Tāj; see al-Talkhīṣ 4/116 and my notes on Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Khuzaymah 2/54.

He also related that al-Bazzār transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Allah, Blessed and Exalted, said: ‘I accept the prayer only from the one who humbles himself in it before My Majesty … and his likeness among My creation is like that of al-Firdaws in Paradise.’”

I say: The author passed over this report in silence, giving the impression that it is sound, whereas it is extremely weak. Both al-Munadhirī and al-Haythamī noted that its chain includes ʿAbd Allāh b. Wāqid al-Ḥarrānī. Al-Ḥāfiẓ said in al-Taqrīb: “He is discarded (matrūk). Aḥmad once praised him, then remarked that he must have grown old, become confused, and he used to practice tadlīs.”

Moreover, the report appears in mawqūf form in Tārīkh al-Bukhārī with a chain containing an unidentified narrator, as I explained in al-Taʿlīq al-Raghīb ʿalā al-Targhīb wa-l-Tarhīb 1/186. It is therefore possible that it originated from Isrāʾīliyyāt which some weak transmitters raised to the Prophet. Allah knows best.