215 – Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: “When the Messenger of Allah ﷺ pronounced the opening takbīr for the prayer, he would pause briefly before he began to recite. I asked him about that pause, and he replied: ‘I say: O Allah, distance me from my sins just as You have distanced the East from the West. O Allah, cleanse me of my sins as a white garment is cleansed of filth. O Allah, wash me of my sins with water, snow, and hail.’” Agreed upon. ⦗1⦘

Vocabulary of the ḥadīth
• hunayha: Al-Qāmūs states that al-hinu—with a kasrah—means “time,” and hunayha is its diminutive; here it refers to a brief, gentle silence.
• khaṭāyā: the plural of khaṭīʾah (sin). The base form is khaṭāʾī, with a kasrah hamzah after the long vowel and a movable yāʾ as the third radical. On pluralizing, the hamzah takes fatḥah and is changed to an alif because it is mobile and preceded by an open vowel, becoming khaṭāʾā. To avoid two consecutive alifs separated only by a hamzah, the hamzah is further changed to yāʾ, yielding khaṭāyā.
• naqqinī: with a doubled qāf; the imperative of naqqā, yunaqqī, tanqiyah, meaning “to purify, to cleanse.” It is a metaphor for removing sins and erasing their traces.
• kamā bāʿadta: the mā is masdariyyah, i.e., “like Your distancing between the East and the West.” Since the meeting of East and West is impossible, the comparison implies that my approaching sins should be just as impossible.
• al-abyad (the white garment): it is singled out because stains show on it more readily, in addition to