hadith masters circulated both collections and took care to ensure the accuracy and correctness of their texts. He said: This is why errors and textual corruptions occur in it (1).

I say (2): This is supported by the fact that those who carefully recorded the sunnah prayers before and after the obligatory prayers and wrote on the subject—including compilers of collections of Sunnah reports, legal hadiths, and other works—did not cite this hadith concerning a sunnah prayer before Friday prayer. Rather, they cited it to establish the recommendation to perform the prayer of greeting the mosque while the imam is on the pulpit, and used it as evidence against those who prohibited performing it (3) in these circumstances. Had these two units constituted the sunnah prayer associated with Friday prayer, citing them under that heading, devoting a chapter to them, preserving their report, and making them widely known would have deserved greater priority than treating them as the prayer of greeting the mosque.

This is also supported by the fact that the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, instructed only the person entering to pray these two units, because they were the prayer of greeting the mosque. Had they been a sunnah prayer associated with Friday prayer, he would also have instructed those already seated to perform them, rather than singling out the person entering (4).

Some cited as evidence what Abū Dāwūd narrated in his Sunan (5): Musaddad narrated to us, saying: We were told by