A sound report from ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir relates that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “There are two prostrations in Sūrat al-Ḥajj.” This was also the view of ʿUmar and ʿAlī. The Qāḍī notes that Abū Dāwūd is the one who recorded the ḥadīth.

As for al-Shāfiʿī, he omitted the prostration in Sūrat Ṣād only because of the narration transmitted by Abū Dāwūd from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: “The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—recited, while on the pulpit, the verse of prostration in Sūrat Ṣād, then descended and prostrated. On another occasion he recited it again, and when the people prepared to prostrate he said, ‘It is merely the repentance of a prophet. Yet when I saw you eager to prostrate, I came down and prostrated.’”

This contains a measure of proof for Abū Ḥanīfah’s position that the prostration is obligatory, because the Prophet offered a specific reason for omitting the prostration in that instance—a reason that does not apply to the other prostration-verses. Hence, the ruling for the verse to which the reason does not apply must differ from the ruling for the verse to which it does. This, however, is a form of reasoning that is itself disputed, for it falls under the category of inference by implied meaning (dalīl al-khiṭāb).

Some scholars who do not consider prostration in the Mufaṣṣal section to be prescribed cite the ḥadīth of ʿIkrimah from Ibn ʿAbbās, recorded by Abū Dāwūd: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—did not perform a single prostration in the Mufaṣṣal after he emigrated to Madinah.”

Abū ʿUmar remarks that this report is anomalous, for Abū Hurayrah—who transmitted that the Prophet did prostrate in the Mufaṣṣal—only accompanied him, peace be upon him, in Madinah. Reliable narrators have related that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—prostrated when reciting “By the star” (Q 53:1).

With regard to the time for performing the prostration, the jurists have differed. Some prohibited it during the periods in which prayer itself is forbidden; this is the school of Abū Ḥanīfah in line with his principle of barring even obligatory prayers at those times. Mālik likewise prohibited it in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, deeming it a voluntary act, and supererogatory prayers are, in his view, barred at such times. Yet Ibn al-Qāsim relates from him that one may prostrate after ʿAṣr so long as the sun has not turned yellow or changed, and likewise after Fajr; this is also the position of al-Shāfiʿī. The rationale is that the prostration is Sunnah, and Sunnah prayers may be offered in these intervals so long as the sun is not close to setting or rising.

As for those to whom the ruling applies, there is consensus that it applies to the reciter, whether he is in prayer or not. They disagreed, however, about the listener—does the obligation extend to him or not?

Abū Ḥanīfah held that it is binding on the listener, making no distinction between men and women. Mālik said that the listener prostrates subject to two conditions: the first is that he has deliberately sat down in order to listen