• No authentic report exists of any Companion having prayed it as twenty rakʿahs; al-Tirmidhī even pointed out the weakness of the narration attributed to ʿAlī.

• Nor is there an agreed consensus on that figure.

• The legislated number must therefore be observed, for that is what is soundly established from the Prophet ﷺ and from ʿUmar. We have been commanded to follow his Sunnah ﷺ and the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs.

• Mālik, Ibn al-ʿArabī, and other scholars rejected any addition beyond this limit.

• Disapproving of the increase does not oblige one to censure the independent imams who adopted it, just as differing with them does not justify casting aspersions on their scholarship or claiming superiority over them in knowledge or understanding.

• Although exceeding eleven rakʿahs is impermissible, offering fewer is allowed—even restricting oneself to a single rakʿah—because that, too, is attested in the Sunnah and was practiced by the early Muslims.

• Every format in which the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prayed witr is valid; the most meritorious is the one with the greater number of rakʿahs, with salām after each pair.

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