There was no prayer more perfect than the prayer of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.
Al-Bukhārī adds: “Yet if he heard a child crying, he would shorten the prayer, fearing that the child’s mother might be distressed.”
What Anas ibn Mālik called “making the prayer light” should be understood in relation to what certain governors and others were doing in the standing portion of the prayer: some of them would prolong the standing far beyond what the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, practiced most of the time, while shortening the bowing, prostration, and the pauses between them compared to his usual manner. It seems that the majority of imams—or at least many of them—had begun to pray in this fashion. Some would even recite, in the final two units, a sūrah in addition to Sūrat al-Fātiḥah. All this gradually became accepted legal opinions among some jurists.
The Khārijites, moreover, plunged into excess and rigidity, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, described them: “One of you would deem his own prayer insignificant beside their prayer, and his fasting insignificant beside their fasting.”
(1) See: Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of the Adhan, chapter “One who shortens the prayer when a child is crying,” hadith no. 708 (Fath al-Bari 1:201–202); and Sahih Muslim, Book of Prayer, chapter “Instructing the imam to keep the prayer brief yet complete,” same hadith no. 469 (1:342). Muslim preserves the additional wording that the author here attributes to al-Bukhari: “The Messenger of Allah would hear a child crying with its mother while he was praying, so he would recite a light or short surah.”
(2) The printed edition reads: fahuwa (“so he/it is”).
(3) The word al-qiyam (“standing”) is omitted in the printed edition.
(4) Ms. B reads: wa-takhfif (“and a shortening”).
(5) The phrase fihima (“in both of them”) is absent from the printed edition.
(6) The word kana (“was”) is missing in Ms. At.
(7) The printed edition has bi-al-ukhriyayn (“with the last two”), whereas Ms. T reads fi al-ukhriyayn (“in the last two”).
(8) This is part of a hadith recorded in both Sahih collections and elsewhere: see Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Merits, chapter “Signs of Prophethood,” hadith no. 3610 (Fath al-Bari 6:617); and Sahih Muslim, Book of Zakat, chapter “The Khawarij and their characteristics,” hadith no. 148 (2:744).