Chapter Six
The Eclipse Prayer

The jurists are unanimous that the prayer for a solar eclipse is a Sunnah and that it is to be performed in congregation. They disagree, however, over its precise form, the manner of Qur’anic recitation within it, the times in which it is permissible, whether a sermon is one of its prerequisites, and whether a lunar eclipse is to be treated the same as a solar eclipse. These are the five principal questions in this chapter.

Issue One
Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, the majority of the scholars of the Ḥijāz, and Aḥmad maintain that the eclipse prayer consists of two rakʿahs, with two bowings in each rakʿah. Abū Ḥanīfah and the Kufan scholars hold that it is two rakʿahs performed in the same manner as the ʿĪd and Friday prayers.

The reason for their divergence is the variation of the transmitted reports on this topic and the fact that some of them run counter to analogy.

It is established in the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah that she said:

“The sun was eclipsed during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him. He led the people in prayer: he stood for a long time, then bowed and prolonged the bowing; he rose and stood for a long time, though not as long as the first standing; he then bowed and prolonged the bowing, though not as long as the first bowing. He rose again, then prostrated, rose, and prostrated once more. In the second rakʿah he did the same as he had done in the first, and when he finished, the sun had become clear.”

The same description—namely, two bowings in each rakʿah—is likewise related in the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās.

Abū ʿUmar said: “These two ḥadīths are among the soundest transmitted on this subject. Whoever relies on them and prefers them to the others on the strength of their chains of transmission says: ‘The eclipse prayer is two rakʿahs, each containing two bowings.’”

It is also reported from Abū Bakrah, Samurah ibn Jundub, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, and al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr that

“He (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed during the eclipse two rakʿahs in the manner of the ʿĪd prayer.”

Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “All of these are well-known, sound reports, and one of the finest among them is the ḥadīth of Abū Qilābah on the authority of al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr, who said:

‘The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—led us in the eclipse prayer much as you pray: he would bow and prostrate two rakʿahs at a time, imploring Allah until the sun became clear.’”