with the Muslims.
Jarīr (1) reported from Mughīrah, from Ibrāhīm, that they disliked fasting on Fridays so that they would have strength for prayer (2).
I say: There are three grounds (3) for regarding it as disliked, and this is one of them. Yet this explanation faces a difficulty: fasting on Friday ceases to be disliked when one also fasts the day before it or the day (4) after it.
The second is that Friday is a day of celebration, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, indicated. Two objections have been raised against this explanation. First, fasting on Friday is not forbidden, whereas fasting on a day of Eid is forbidden. Second, it ceases to be disliked when Friday is not singled out for fasting.
Both objections have been answered by explaining that Friday is not an annual day of celebration, but a weekly one; the prohibition applies only to fasting on the day (5) of the annual celebration. If a person also fasts the day before or the day after, he has not fasted on Friday because it is Friday and a day of celebration (6). Thus, the harm arising from singling it out is removed; rather, it is included incidentally among his fasting days.
This is how we should understand the report narrated by Imam Ahmad in his Musnad and by al-Nasā’ī