I did not wish to leave this gathering before clarifying an important point—may Allah cause whomever He wills among His servants to benefit from it. The Duha prayer is firmly established by the Prophet’s own words, by his urging of the Companions, and by his approving their observance of it—all in terms that leave no room for doubt.
Among the proofs are the hadiths cited in this chapter and the report recorded by Muslim (722) in which the Prophet instructed Abu al-Darda’ to perform it, just as he had instructed Abu Hurayrah.
Muslim (720) also relates, in Abu Dharr’s narration about saying “Subhan Allah,” “La ilaha illa Allah,” and “Al-hamdu lillah” as charity for every joint, that the Prophet said: “Two rakʿahs that one of you prays at Duha will suffice for all that.”
Al-Bukhari (1128) and Muslim (718) transmit a report from ʿA’ishah (may Allah be pleased with her): “The Messenger of Allah would abandon a deed he loved to do, fearing that the people might act upon it and it then be made obligatory for them. I never saw the Messenger of Allah perform the Duha supererogatory prayer, yet I myself perform it.”
It is unthinkable that the Mother of the Believers would consistently keep up the Duha prayer without the Prophet’s knowledge, or that she would persist in an act of worship that had not been legislated. She is, after all, the one who related his statement: “Whoever introduces into this matter of ours anything that is not from it, it is rejected,” a hadith found in the two Sahihs. She explained the Prophet’s non-observance of Duha by saying that he feared it might become burdensome for his community. Indeed, she affirmed that some practices he left off as a concession were things he actually loved to do; the context of her words concerns the Duha prayer.
It is therefore astonishing that anyone would deny its sunnah status on the grounds that the Messenger of Allah did not perform it regularly, nor did Abu Bakr or ʿUmar—especially when the scholars unanimously agree that a sunnah is established by the Prophet’s statement, action, or tacit approval. Once the command to observe Duha is authenticated, no scholar versed in the Sunnah and its categories can doubt its being recommended. By the same logic, one would also have to reject the merit of the fast of David, for the Messenger of Allah did not practice it himself, even though he praised it and instructed ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar to adopt it when the latter sought the most excellent form of fasting.