it was in obligatory prayer or (1) in voluntary prayer? Either is possible.
As for reciting the same surah in both units of prayer, he rarely did so. Abū Dāwūd (2) reported from a man of Juhaynah that he heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) recite Idhā zulzilat (When the Earth Is Shaken) in both units of the dawn prayer. He said: “I do not know whether the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forgot or recited it deliberately.”
Section
He would make the first unit longer than the second in the dawn prayer and in every other prayer. Sometimes he would prolong it until no footsteps could be heard.
He would prolong the dawn prayer more than the other prayers (3). This is because the Quran recitation at dawn is witnessed. It has been said that Allah and His angels witness it; it has also been said that it is witnessed (4) by the angels of the night and the day (5). These two views depend on whether the divine descent continues until the end of
(1) ك reads: “aw (or).”
(2) No. 816; its sources were previously cited on p. 232.
(3) Reported by Ahmad (19146) and Abū Dāwūd (802) from ‘Abd Allāh ibn Abī Awfā; the narrator transmitting from him is unnamed. Al-Bayhaqī (2/66) reports it through another chain identifying the unnamed man as Tarafa al-Hadramī. Tarafa is an unknown narrator. This chain also includes Abū Ishāq al-Humaysī, who is weak, and al-Himmānī—Yahyā ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmān—a hadith master accused of stealing hadith. Al-Albānī graded the hadith as weak in al-Irwā’ (513) and discussed it in detail in Da‘īf Abī Dāwūd—al-Umm (1/312–313).
(4) ك, ع read: “yashhaduhu (witnesses it).”
(5) The first report is related by al-Tabarī in Jāmi‘ al-bayān (15/34) and Ibn Khuzayma in al-Tawhīd (1/279), from Abū al-Dardā’. Its chain includes Ziyāda ibn Muhammad, who is munkar al-hadīth (a transmitter of objectionable hadith).
The second is reported by al-Bukhārī (648) and Muslim (649), from Abū Hurayra. Al-Bukhārī (555) and Muslim (632) also report from Abū Hurayra the wording: “Angels of the night and angels of the day take turns among you, and they gather at the dawn and afternoon prayers.”