Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Tahawi, al-Tiyalisi, and Ahmad likewise relate the hadith through the route of Abu Ishaq, who said: “I heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Malik say, ‘I prayed with Ibn ʿUmar at Jamʿ. He gave the iqama and led maghrib as three rakʿahs, then—using the same iqama—led ʿisha as two rakʿahs.’ Khalid ibn Malik questioned him about this, and he answered, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ did the same in this very place.’

This ʿAbd Allah ibn Malik is Ibn al-Harith; Ibn Hajar states in al-Taqrib that he is “maqbul” (acceptable).

Thus, the reports from Ibn ʿUmar differ. The two narrations just cited say that the Prophet ﷺ combined maghrib and ʿisha with a single iqama, whereas the report of Salim ibn ʿAbd Allah affirms that he gave a separate iqama for each. Salim’s version is given precedence over the accounts of Saʿid ibn Jubayr and Ibn Malik because it contains additional information and comes through a narrator whose higher reliability is acknowledged. Moreover, it accords with the narrations of Usama ibn Zayd and Jabir ibn ʿAbd Allah, both of which agree on two iqamas; accordingly, the corroborating report from Ibn ʿUmar is more deserving of acceptance and reliance. This is the view adopted by al-Nawawi in his commentary on Muslim, and before him by Ibn Hazm, who also preferred Salim’s report over the others.

The same ruling—that an iqama is given for each of the two prayers when they are combined, whether the combination is advanced or delayed—was upheld by Ibn Hazm; it is likewise the “old” position of al-Shafiʿi, one narration from Ahmad, and the view of the Maliki scholar Ibn al-Majishun and the Hanafi jurist al-Tahawi, in opposition to Abu Hanifa and his two companions, for they held, regarding the combining of the two prayers, that