- Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) related: “The Prophet ﷺ prostrated when he recited Sūrah al-Najm.” Reported by al-Bukhārī (1).
Points derived from the ḥadith
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The report establishes the legitimacy of the prostration of recitation for the one who is reciting the Qur’an.
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It also proves that the prostrations found in the chapters of the Mufaṣṣal – the short sūrahs from Sūrah Qāf to Sūrah al-Nās – count as prostrations of recitation. This contradicts the view of al-Shāfiʿī, who did not recognise the prostrations of the Mufaṣṣal as such. Al-Bukhārī narrates: “The Prophet ﷺ recited wa’l-najm (Sūrah al-Najm), then prostrated, and the Muslims and the polytheists prostrated with him.” Al-Ṭaḥāwī remarked: “The reports of his ﷺ prostrating in the Mufaṣṣal are mutawātir,” as has been mentioned earlier.
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The reason the polytheists in Mecca prostrated with him when they heard Sūrah al-Najm was what they heard at the end of the sūrah about the destruction of the nations that denied their messengers. Allah the Exalted says:
“and that He destroyed the former ʿĀd (50), and Thamūd, sparing none (51); and before them the people of Noah, for they were more unjust and more rebellious (52); and the overturned towns He hurled down (53); then there covered them that which covered [them] (54)” (al-Najm).
These thunderous warnings filled them with fear, so they prostrated.
They reacted in like manner on other occasions when they heard the Qur’an. ʿUtbah ibn Rabīʿah, for instance, once listened to the Prophet ﷺ recite ḥā-mīm, Sūrah Fuṣṣilat. The Prophet ﷺ continued until he reached the verse, “But if they turn away, then say, ‘I have warned you of a thunderbolt like the thunderbolt that struck ʿĀd and Thamūd’” (13). ʿUtbah put his hand over the Prophet’s mouth, invoked their kinship, and begged him to stop. He returned to Quraysh with a face entirely different from the one he had left with, urging them to reconsider, yet they refused his counsel. Likewise, when Ḥakīm ibn Ḥizām heard the verse, “Were they created out of nothing, or are they themselves the creators?” (al-Ṭūr 35), he trembled, though he was still in a state of disbelief.