Matar’s narration from Shubah is: “The Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) bowing, prostration, sitting between the two prostrations, and standing after raising his head from bowing—apart from the standing for recitation and the sitting for the tashahhud—were nearly equal in duration.” This is also recorded in the Sahīh and Sunan collections in the hadith of Hilāl ibn Abī Humayd, from Ibn Abī Laylā, from al-Barā ibn Āzib, who said: “I closely observed the prayer with Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), and found that his standing, then his bowing, then his upright posture after bowing, then his prostration, then his sitting between the two prostrations, then his prostration, and the interval between the salutation and his departure were nearly equal in duration.”

This is further corroborated by the report related by Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, and al-Nasāī from Abū Saīd al-Khudrī (may Allah be pleased with him), who said that when the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his head from bowing, he would say: “Allah hears whoever praises Him. O Allah, our Lord, to You belongs praise filling the heavens, filling the earth, and filling whatever else You will. You are worthy of praise and glory. This is the truest thing a servant has said—and we are all Your servants. None can withhold what You give, none can give what You withhold, and no possessor of fortune can benefit from his fortune against You.”

His words, “the truest thing a servant has said,” are precisely how the hadith reads, and the phrase is the predicate of an omitted subject. As for the wording cited by certain jurist and Sufi authors—“What the servant has said is true”—it is indisputably a textual corruption according to scholars of hadith and the Sunnah. It has no basis in any transmitted report, and its meaning is also unsound, for indeed