“Complete your prayer,” he said; then he let the curtain drop and passed away that same day. Muslim (1) also transmitted the report through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Ṣāliḥ (2) ibn Kaysān, and Maʿmar, from al-Zuhrī, from Anas.

Al-Bukhārī (3) likewise recorded: Abū Maʿmar narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Wārith related to us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, from Anas ibn Mālik, who said: “The Prophet ﷺ had not come out to us for three days. The prayer was about to begin, and Abū Bakr stepped forward to lead it. The Prophet of Allah ﷺ said, ‘Draw back the curtain,’ so they drew it. When the face of the Prophet ﷺ became visible, we beheld nothing that delighted us more than his face at that moment. The Prophet ﷺ gestured with his hand to Abū Bakr to continue leading the prayer, then he let the curtain fall, and none of us was able to reach him until he ﷺ passed away.”

Muslim (4) also related it through ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith, from his father, with the same wording. This is the clearest proof that he ﷺ did not perform the dawn (Ṣubḥ) prayer with the people on Monday, and that he had already ceased coming out to them for three days.

We therefore maintain that the last prayer he performed with them was the noon (Ẓuhr) prayer, as is explicitly stated in the aforementioned ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah; and that took place on Thursday—not on Saturday or Sunday, as al-Bayhaqī reported from the Maghāzī of Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah, whose report is weak—for the reasons we have already given regarding the sermon that followed it, and because he did not come out to them on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, which are three complete days.

Al-Wāqidī (6) relates, on the authority of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Sabrah, that Abū Bakr led them in seventeen prayers; others say twenty. Allah knows best.

Then, on the morning of Monday, his noble face appeared to them; with a single glance he bade them farewell—one that almost overwhelmed them—and that was the last most of them ever saw of him. Their unspoken feelings might be summed up in the verse:

I once deemed death but the span of an hour—
What, then, of a parting whose tryst is the Resurrection?

It is remarkable that the ḥāfiẓ al-Bayhaqī (7) cited this ḥadīth through both chains and then concluded, in essence: Perhaps the Prophet ﷺ remained behind the curtain during the first rakʿah, then emerged during the second and prayed behind Abū Bakr, as related by ʿUrwah and Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah; this escaped Anas ibn Mālik, or he reported only part of the account and omitted the rest. This suggestion (8) is, however, extremely unlikely, for Anas said plainly, “None was able to reach him until he passed away.” In another narration