“All salutations, prayers, and good things belong to Allah. Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah. Peace be upon us and upon Allah’s righteous servants. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger” (1).
Al-Nasā’ī (2) recorded a hadith transmitted by Abū al-Zubayr from Jābir, who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) would teach us the tashahhud just as he would teach us a surah from the Quran: “In the name of Allah and by Allah. All salutations, prayers, and good things belong to Allah. Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy and blessings of Allah. Peace be upon us and upon Allah’s righteous servants. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger (3). I ask Allah for Paradise and seek refuge in Allah from the Fire.”
The mention of Allah’s name at the beginning of the tashahhud occurs only in this hadith. It has a defect apart from Abū al-Zubayr’s use of the transmission formula “from” (4).
(1) Recorded by al-Bukhārī (831) and Muslim (402) from ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd.
(2) In al-Mujtabā (1175, 1281) and al-Kubrā (765), through Ayman ibn Nābil, from Abū al-Zubayr, from Jābir, with this wording. Also recorded by al-Tayālisī (1847) and Ibn Abī Shayba (3006).
Al-Tirmidhī referred to it after hadith (290), saying: “It is not reliably preserved.” Al-Nasā’ī (1281) said: “We know of no one who corroborated Ayman ibn Nābil in this narration … and the hadith is erroneous.” Al-Dāraqutnī said in Su’ālāt al-Hākim (286): “[Ayman] is not strong; he contradicted the other narrators, even if only the tashahhud hadith were considered.” See the following comment.
(3) The passage “Al-Nasā’ī mentioned … and His Messenger” is omitted from kāf because the copyist’s eye skipped ahead.
(4) Muslim stated that neither the chain of transmission nor the text of this hadith is established. The established version is that transmitted by al-Layth and ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Humayd, from Abū al-Zubayr, from Tāwūs, from Ibn ‘Abbās, with this wording. He explained that the narrator substituted “from Abū al-Zubayr, from Jābir” for “from Abū al-Zubayr, from Tāwūs, from Ibn ‘Abbās,” following the usual transmission route (salaka al-jādda). The narrator alone reported the additional wording at the beginning, “In the name of Allah and by Allah,” and at the end, “I ask Allah for Paradise and seek refuge in Allah from the Fire.” See al-Tamyīz, pp. 127–129.