and their evidence is the ḥadith of ʿĀʾishah and the ḥadith of Ibn ʿAbbās.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “These two reports are among the most authentic transmitted on this subject.” The Ḥanbalīs, for their part, allow every form that has come from the Lawgiver, yet they hold that the optimal mode is four rakʿahs with four prostrations, which is also the position of the majority.

The compiler—may Allah pardon him—states: The eclipse prayer has been described in several ways:
• A general command to perform the prayer, without detail.
• Four rakʿahs with four prostrations.
• Six rakʿahs with four prostrations.
• Eight rakʿahs with four prostrations.
• Ten rakʿahs with four prostrations.

Since an eclipse took place only once in the Prophet’s lifetime, the leading imams and researchers have therefore regarded the ḥadith of ʿĀʾishah—“four rakʿahs and four prostrations”—as weightier than the other narrations. The remaining versions were declared weak by authorities such as Aḥmad, al-Bukhārī, al-Shāfiʿī, Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others.

Shaykh al-Islām said: “Various formats for the eclipse prayer have been reported, but the one that has become widespread among those acquainted with the Prophet’s Sunnah—related by al-Bukhārī and Muslim through multiple chains and preferred by most scholars, including Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad—is that he led them in two rakʿahs, each rakʿah containing two bowings.”

Shaykh Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī added: “The correct view is that there are two bowings in every rakʿah, as in the ḥadith of ʿĀʾishah and other Companions; anything else is either weak or irregular and cannot be cited as proof.”

The jurists unanimously agree that the time for the eclipse prayer lasts from the very beginning of the eclipse until