conclude the prayer with the salutation of peace, then turn to face the people and say: “Give charity.” Most of those who gave charity were women. He then related the rest of the hadith.
Then he said (1): Abū Bakr ibn Khallād narrated to us; Abū Āmir narrated to us; Dāwūd narrated to us, from Iyād, from Abū Saīd: The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would go out on the day of Eid al-Fitr and lead the people in prayer, beginning with the two units of prayer. He would then face them while they remained seated and say: “Give charity.” He then related a similar account. This is Ibn Mājah’s chain of transmission (2), except that he related it from Abū Kurayb, from Abū Usāmah, from Dāwūd. Perhaps, then, the wording was: “Then he stands on his feet (3),” as Jābir said: “He stood leaning on Bilāl,” and the scribe miscopied it as “his mount” (4). Allah knows best.
If it is objected: Both al-Bukhārī and Muslim related in their Sahīh collections (5), from Ibn Abbās, who said: “I attended the Eid al-Fitr prayer with Allah’s Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), Abū Bakr, Umar, and Uthmān. All of them would perform the prayer before the sermon, then deliver the sermon. He said: Allah’s Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) then came down. It is as though I can see him now, gesturing with his hand for the men to sit down. Then he made his way through them until he reached the women, accompanied by Bilāl, and said: ‘O Prophet, when believing women come to you pledging allegiance to you that they will not associate anything with Allah’ [al-Mumtahanah: 12], then he recited the verse