375 – Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “When one of you has performed the Friday prayer, let him pray four (rakʿahs) afterward.” Narrated by Muslim (1).

Points derived from the ḥadith

1. The report proves that the Friday prayer has an established sunnah afterward, consisting of four rakʿahs, offered two and two.
2. Al-Bukhari (937) and Muslim (882) relate from Ibn ʿUmar that “the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to pray two rakʿahs after Jumuʿah,” while Sunan Abī Dāwūd records that “he prayed six.” Imām Aḥmad said: If one wishes, he may pray two, or four, or six; whichever he performs is commendable, for the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did all of them.
3. There is no regular sunnah before Jumuʿah. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would leave his house, ascend the minbar, and Bilāl would begin the adhān; when Bilāl finished, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) immediately commenced the sermon, with no intervening prayer.
   Shaykh al-Islām and Ibn al-Qayyim stated that there is no sunnah before Jumuʿah, and this is the soundest of the two scholarly opinions and the one indicated by the sunnah.
   The Shaykh added: This is also the view of al-Shāfiʿī and the majority of the leading imams. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) enumerated the regular prayers, and since he mentioned none for Jumuʿah except the one that follows it, it is understood that there is none preceding it. This is an act whose occasion existed in his lifetime; because he neither performed it nor legislated it, leaving it off is itself the sunnah.