then perform the prayer early.” Ibn Shihāb said, “I asked Sālim, ‘Did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ actually do that?’ He replied (1): ‘Whom do they mean by it except his Sunnah?!’

Thus Sālim—one of the seven jurists of Madinah and, among the Successors, one of the leading ḥuffāẓ—transmitted from the Companions that whenever they referred to “the Sunnah” without qualification, they intended nothing but the Prophet’s Sunnah ﷺ (2).

As for the objection some raise: “If (3) it were truly marfūʿ, why did they not simply say, ‘The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said’?”, the answer is that they refrained from such categorical wording out of scrupulousness and caution.

Among the texts that illustrate this is the statement of Abū Qilābah, on the authority of Anas: “Part of the Sunnah is that when a man marries a virgin while already married to a non-virgin, he stays with her for seven nights.” Both Imams included it in their Ṣaḥīḥ collections (4). Abū Qilābah remarked, “Had I wished, I could have said that Anas traced it back to the Prophet ﷺ”—that is, had he said so he would not have been lying, for the phrase “Part of the Sunnah” conveys precisely that meaning. Nonetheless, it is preferable to report it in the very wording employed by the Companion (5).

Another example is the Companion’s declaration, “We were commanded to do such-and-such,” or, “We were forbidden (6) from such-and-such.” The scholarly dispute over this formulation is the same as the dispute concerning (7) the one just mentioned, because the unqualified