in that prayer, as well as its number and time. If they could have failed to preserve the practice of supplication in that prayer, they could equally have failed to preserve those matters; there is no difference. By this same reasoning, we know that it was not his practice to recite “In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful” aloud six times (1) every day and night, continually and without interruption, only for most of the Muslim community to fail to preserve this practice and remain unaware of it. This is utterly impossible. Had it actually occurred, it would have been transmitted just as the number of prayers, the number of prayer cycles, audible and silent recitation, the number of prostrations, and the positions and sequence of the pillars of prayer were transmitted. Allah alone grants success.

The fair assessment that an impartial scholar would accept is that he recited both aloud and silently, and that he sometimes offered supplication and sometimes omitted it. His silent recitation was more frequent than his audible recitation, and he omitted supplication more often than he offered it. He offered it only when calamities struck, praying for some people and against others. He then ceased when those for whom he had prayed arrived, having been freed from captivity, and those against whom he had prayed embraced Islam and came in repentance. His supplication was thus prompted by a particular circumstance; when that circumstance ended, he ceased offering it.

This was not confined to the dawn prayer; rather, he offered supplication in both the dawn and sunset prayers. Al-Bukhārī reported this in his Sahīh (2) from Anas, and Muslim (3) reported it from al-Barā’. Imam Ahmad (4) reported from Ibn ‘Abbās, who said: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) offered supplication for an entire month, in