It is remarkable, then, that such a person does not regard its regular recitation in Witr as recommended, although Witr is expressly mentioned in the hadith itself, yet regularly recites it in Fajr, despite there being no report that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, recited it in Fajr. It is known with undeniable certainty that, had qunūt been his regular practice, this would not have gone unrecorded. The Companions, followed by the Successors, would have had every reason to transmit it. They left nothing unreported concerning his regular practice in prayer; indeed, they even transmitted practices he did not observe regularly, such as supplicating in qunūt for particular people or against particular people, and other such matters.

In certain respects, this claim also resembles the claims made by some followers of deviant inclinations concerning an explicit designation of a particular person for the imamate, or additions to the Quran, and similar matters. For this reason, authors distinguished between explaining what could not have been falsely reported and what could not have been concealed. When discussing truthful, mass-transmitted reports that cannot be false, they examine what is ruled out in the case of reports on the basis of general or particular customary patterns, or scriptural evidence indicating that this religion is preserved, and similar considerations. A detailed discussion of this belongs elsewhere.

As for supplicating against the People of the Book—as some make a regular sunnah in the qunūt supplication during the latter half of Ramadan or at other times—this is only reported from ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, who used to offer this supplication when he was fighting the People of the Book in Syria. He offered it in the obligatory prayer, and this accords with the Sunnah of the Messenger of