in the mosque, that is permissible; yet offering them at home is preferable, in the light of this sound ḥadīth.
He continues, completing the quotation from Ibn al-Qayyim: “Abū Dāwūd has narrated from Ibn ʿUmar that when he prayed in the mosque he prayed four, and when he prayed at home he prayed two.”
I say: Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—abridged the opening sentence of this report in a way that distorts its meaning, and the author was taken in by it. This is not surprising, for he has a habit of not consulting the original sources. What is surprising is that it escaped the notice of the annotator of Zād al-Maʿād, who claimed that he had “verified its texts and traced its ḥadīths….” When documenting this narration (1/440) he merely wrote: “It was related by Abū Dāwūd, 1130, in the Book of Prayer, Chapter: The Prayer after Friday.”
Yet the actual wording in the place to which he referred is:
“From ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿUmar, who said: When he was in Mecca and had prayed Friday, he would step forward and pray two rakʿahs, then step forward and pray four; but when he was in Medina he would pray Friday, then return to his house and pray two rakʿahs and would not pray in the mosque. He was asked about that, and he replied, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to do that.’”
Al-Bayhaqī transmitted it in the same way (3/240–241), and it is authenticated in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd, 1035.
You can therefore see that Abū Dāwūd’s version differs from what Ibn al-Qayyim attributed to it in two respects:
- It states that he used to pray six rakʿahs, whereas Ibn al-Qayyim says four!
- It shows that this took place in Mecca—that is, the Sacred Mosque—while Ibn al-Qayyim simply says “the mosque,” meaning the Prophet’s Mosque, as is clear from his next words, “and when he prayed at home,” i.e.