a portion of the hadith and leave the rest, unlike the opening supplication beginning “Glory be to You, O Allah,” for (1) those who choose it recite all of it (2), to the end.
After that, he would say, “I seek refuge in Allah from the accursed Satan” (3), then recite (4) al-Fātihah. He sometimes recited “In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” aloud, but more often recited it quietly. There is no doubt that he did not invariably recite it aloud six times (5) every day and night, at home and while travelling, without this being known to his rightly guided successors, the majority of the Companions, and the people of his city during the generations of excellence. This is utterly inconceivable—so much so (6) that defending it requires clinging to ambiguous wording and feeble hadiths. The authentic hadiths on this matter are not explicit, and the explicit ones are not authentic. This subject calls for a substantial volume (7).
He would prolong his recitation, pausing at each verse and sustaining his voice as he recited it (8).
(1) ق, م, مب: “qāla (he said),” a scribal error.
(2) “Kullahu (all of it)” is supplied from ق, م, مب, ن.
(3) Al-Albānī states in Asl Sifat al-salāh (The Original Description of Prayer), 1:275, that no authentic report from the Prophet ﷺ establishes restricting the supplication for seeking refuge to this wording, apart from what occurs in al-Hasan’s mursal report. Seeking refuge will be discussed in detail later.
(4) ك: “wa-yaqra’ (and he recites).”
(5) This refers to the six rak‘ahs recited aloud in the Fajr, Maghrib, and ‘Ishā’ prayers. ن reads “five times,” as do the printed editions. This apparently reflects an alteration by a copyist who thought the reference was to the five prayers.
(6) ق, م: “hīna (when),” a scribal error.
(7) Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr has a comprehensive work on this subject entitled al-Insāf fīmā bayna ‘ulamā’ al-muslimīn fī qirā’at “Bism Allāh al-Rahmān al-Rahīm” fī Fātihat al-Kitāb min al-ikhtilāf (A Fair Assessment of the Disagreement among Muslim Scholars over Reciting “In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful” in the Opening Chapter of the Book).
(8) Reported by al-Bukhārī from Anas (5046). It is also reported from Umm Salamah; its source references will be given later (p. 613).