the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him); it is not permissible to take something established by the Sunnah and reject it on the basis of personal opinion and analogy.

Another point that clarifies this is that making the prayer light is relative and context-dependent; it has no fixed limit in either language or custom. One group may consider lengthy what another considers light, while the latter may consider light what the former regards as lengthy. Thus, it varies according to people’s customs (and according to the measures of acts of worship, although not every act of worship has a measure prescribed by the Law).

It is therefore evident that a Muslim must refer to the Sunnah in determining the extent to which the prayer should be shortened or prolonged. This also makes clear that his command (peace and blessings be upon him) to make the prayer light does not conflict with his other command to prolong it, in the hadith of Ammār recorded in the Sahīh, in which he said: “The length of a man’s prayer and the brevity of his sermon are a sign of his understanding of the religion. So prolong the prayer and shorten the sermon.” Elsewhere, he commanded them to make the prayer light, and there is no conflict between the two: the prolongation here is relative to the sermon, while the lightening there is relative to what some imams of his time did by reciting Sūrat al-Baqara during the night prayer. Hence he said: “When one of you prays by himself, let him prolong it as much as he wishes.”