They also disagreed over two further periods:
- the moment when the sun is at its zenith (zawāl), and
- the time after the ʿAṣr Prayer.
Mālik and his followers hold that the forbidden periods are four: sunrise, sunset, the interval after the Fajr Prayer, and the interval after ʿAṣr; consequently he permits prayer at the zenith.
Al-Shāfiʿī, however, counts five prohibited periods in all, allowing prayer only at the zenith on Friday. A number of scholars, moreover, make an exception for the time after ʿAṣr.
The cause of the disagreement is one of two things: either (a) a ḥadīth is opposed by another ḥadīth, or (b) a ḥadīth is opposed by established practice in the eyes of those who give practice weight—namely, the practice of the people of Madinah, a principle championed by Mālik ibn Anas. Wherever a prohibition is reported with no opposing proof, whether verbal or practical, there is consensus; wherever a counter-proof exists, they differ.
Their dispute over the zenith stems from practice contradicting the report. For it is authentically transmitted from ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir al-Juhanī that he said:
“There are three hours in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) forbade us to pray or to bury our dead: when the sun rises and its disk first appears until it has ascended, when it stands motionless at noon until it inclines, and when it begins to set toward the horizon.”
Muslim recorded this ḥadīth, and a similar report from Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣunābihī bears the same meaning, though its chain is interrupted; Mālik included it in his Muwaṭṭaʾ.
Some scholars therefore prohibit prayer during all three of these times, while others exempt the zenith—either without qualification, as Mālik does, or only on Friday, as al-Shāfiʿī maintains. Mālik’s reason is that the practice he observed in Madinah confirmed only the other two prohibited periods and not the third, the zenith; he therefore deemed prayer at that time permissible and concluded that the earlier prohibition had been abrogated by practice.
Those who do not recognise practice as authoritative remain upon the original ban; we have discussed the strength of such practice in our work on juristic discourse, commonly called “Uṣūl al-Fiqh.”
As for al-Shāfiʿī, once it became sound to him that Ibn Shihāb related from Thaʿlabah ibn Abī Mālik al-Quraẓī that, in the time of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the people would pray on Friday until ʿUmar came out—and it is known that ʿUmar emerged after the zenith, as established by the report of the awning that was spread against the mosque wall—he