- Sitting for the first tashahhud, because the Prophet ﷺ did so consistently and said: “Pray as you have seen me pray.”
Whoever deliberately abandons any of these eight verbal and physical obligations renders his prayer invalid, for he is trifling with it. If he leaves one of them out through forgetfulness or ignorance, he must perform the prostrations of forgetfulness (sujūd al-sahw), for he has omitted an obligation whose omission is forbidden, and those prostrations make up for it.
Sunnah elements of the prayer
The third category consists of all words and actions of the prayer not mentioned in the first two categories; they are Sunnah, and the prayer is not nullified by omitting them.
The Sunnah elements are of two kinds:
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Sunnahs of speech. They are many, including: the opening supplication (istiftāḥ); seeking refuge (taʿawwudh); the basmalah; saying “Āmīn”; and, after al-Fātiḥah, reciting whatever is easy from the Quran in Fajr, the Friday prayer, the two ʿĪd prayers, the eclipse prayer, and the first two rakʿahs of Maghrib, ʿIshāʾ, Ẓuhr, and ʿAṣr.
Other Sunnahs of speech include: adding, after “rabbana laka al-ḥamd” (Our Lord, to You belongs all praise), the words “milʾa al-samāʾ wa milʾa al-arḍ wa milʾa mā shiʾta min shayʾin baʿd” (a fullness of the heavens, a fullness of the earth, and a fullness of whatever else You will); repeating the tasbīḥ in bowing and prostration more than once; repeating “rabbi ʾghfir lī” (Lord, forgive me) between the two prostrations more than once; saying, “Allāhumma innī aʿūdhu bika min ʿadhābi Jahannam, wa min ʿadhāb al-qabr, wa min fitnati al-maḥyā wa-l-mamāt, wa min fitnati al-Masīḥ al-Dajjāl” (O Allah, I seek refuge in You from the punishment of Hell, from the punishment of the grave, from the trials of life and death, and from the trial of the Antichrist); and whatever