Under the heading “Prayer amid crowding”: “Aḥmad and al-Bayhaqī relate from Siyar who said, ‘I heard ʿUmar delivering a sermon in which he said …,’” and in it ʿUmar’s words occur:
“When the crush becomes severe, let each of you make prostration upon his brother’s back.”

I say: The report is found in the Musnad 1/32 and in Sunan al-Bayhaqī 3/182–183 through the isnād of Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd Abū Dāwūd, from Siyar.
This Abū Dāwūd is al-Ṭayālisī, the author of the famous Musnad, where he also recorded it under no. 70.

As for Siyar—namely Ibn Maʿrūr— Ibn al-Madīnī said: “Unknown,” and on that basis al-Haythamī declared the report defective, 2/10, adding, “It has also been said that the narrator is Maghrūr (with a dotted ghayn and an undotted rāʾ).”

I reply: Even so, this very sentence from ʿUmar has been transmitted by ʿAbd al-Razzāq (5465 and 5469) through two further chains: the first is sound, the second broken, but al-Bayhaqī supplied its missing link and his chain is authentic.

Under the discussion of the post-Friday sunnah prayer: “Ibn al-Qayyim said: Our teacher Ibn Taymiyyah stated: ‘If one performs it in the mosque he prays four; if he performs it at home he prays two.’”

I say: I know of no foundation for this distinction in the Sunnah except what will shortly be cited from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar, and I shall clarify its import. As for the authentic narration already mentioned—“Whoever among you wishes to pray after Friday, let him pray four” (related by Muslim and others; Irwāʾ no. 625)—it contains no indication that the four rakʿahs are to be offered in the mosque. On the contrary, the well-known authentic ḥadīth states, “The best prayer a man performs is in his house, except for the obligatory ones.” Therefore, whether he prays two or four rakʿahs after Friday