and its chain of transmission meets Muslim’s criteria for authenticity.

A third version is likewise related from Ibn ʿAbbās:
Al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbbās told him that he entered the House together with the Prophet ﷺ, and that the Prophet ﷺ did not pray inside it when he went in; rather, once he came out and stepped down he prayed two rakʿahs at the door of the House.

Aḥmad records it, saying: ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us; Ibn Jurayj narrated to us; ʿAmr ibn Dīnār informed me that Ibn ʿAbbās used to relate this report to him.
This isnād is sound according to the standards of all six canonical compilers.

There is also a report on the same topic from Ibn ʿUmar, transmitted by al-Bukhārī and others through the route of Mujāhid from him; its wording has already been cited in the place indicated above.

Al-Nawawī, may Allah have mercy on him, said in Sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab:

“Concerning the Prophet’s words, ‘This is the qiblah,’ al-Khattābī said: It means that the matter of the qiblah has now been firmly established upon this House and will never again be abrogated; therefore pray toward it forever, for it is your qiblah. He added: It is also possible that the Prophet ﷺ was teaching them the sunnah of the imam’s position, namely that he should stand facing its front wall rather than its corners, even though praying toward any side of it is valid. This is al-Khattābī’s statement. A third possibility is that the meaning is: This Kaʿbah is al-Masjid al-Ḥarām you have been commanded to face—not the whole Sacred Precinct, nor Mecca, nor the mosque that surrounds the Kaʿbah, but the Kaʿbah itself alone.”

After citing this third interpretation from al-Nawawī, al-Ḥāfiẓ (Ibn Ḥajar) states in al-Talkhīṣ: