of the funeral prayer1, and he advances precisely the same argument we do—even though it is authentically reported from Ibn ʿUmar that he would raise his hands during it! If that narration turns the extra takbīrs into a sunnah, then let him declare them so; if not, he should rule out their legality in both places, and that is the truth—especially since the reports from ʿUmar and his son on this point are unsound.
As for the report from ʿUmar, al-Bayhaqī transmits it with a weak chain.
Concerning his son, I have not yet located any chain at all, and Mālik said, “I have not heard anything about it.” See Irwāʾ 640.
The author also says: “No specific remembrance has been preserved from the Prophet ﷺ between the takbīrs, but al-Ṭabarānī and al-Bayhaqī relate with a strong isnād from Ibn Masʿūd—both in word and deed—that he used to praise Allah, extol Him, and invoke blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ.”
I reply: He deemed its chain strong, following al-Ḥāfiẓ in al-Talkhīṣ, yet I question that assessment. The chain of al-Ṭabarānī is broken, as al-Haythamī notes in al-Majmaʿ, and the isnād of al-Bayhaqī was critiqued by Ibn al-Turkumanī in al-Jawhar al-Naqī on the grounds that “it contains someone whose status requires elucidation.”
Most likely that person is Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb—whom I do not know, and there are several narrators bearing that name. Ibn al-Qayyim, in Zād al-Maʿād, likewise judged this report from Ibn Masʿūd weak, and that is the more probable verdict, further supported by Ibn al-Turkumanī’s remark:
“Al-Bayhaqī has already quoted Ibn Masʿūd’s statement in the preceding chapter through several chains, Ibn Abī Shaybah has transmitted it through even more, and others have cited it as well. In none of those routes is any remembrance mentioned between the takbīrs. Such wording is found in neither a musnad ḥadīth nor any report from the early generations.”