from al-Maqburī (1), from Abū Hurayrah, who said: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, sent out an army, which returned swiftly with abundant spoils. A man said, “O Messenger of Allah, we have never seen an expedition return more swiftly or bring back greater spoils than this one.” He replied:
“Shall I tell you of someone who returns more swiftly and gains greater spoils? A man who performs ablution at home, doing it thoroughly, then goes to the mosque and offers the dawn prayer there, then follows it with the midmorning prayer= he has indeed returned swiftly and gained abundant spoils.”
There are other hadiths on this subject, but these are the strongest among them. Al-Hākim said: “I accompanied a number of leading hadith scholars renowned for their memorization and reliability. I found that they preferred this number—meaning four rak'ahs—and offered this prayer as four rak'ahs because of the widespread transmission of authentic reports concerning it. This is the position I adopt and advocate, following the transmitted reports and the example of the hadith scholars in this matter.”
Ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī (2), after mentioning the reports traced back to the Prophet concerning the midmorning prayer and the differing numbers of its rak'ahs, said: “There is no hadith among these whose reporter is to be rejected. This is because (3) someone who reported four rak'ahs for the midmorning prayer may have seen him offering that number on one occasion, while someone else saw him offering two rak'ahs on another occasion, and another saw him offering eight on yet another occasion. Someone else heard him encourage offering six, another heard him encourage offering two, and another to offer