Abī Shaybah: Jarīr informed us, from Mansūr, from Ibrāhīm, who said:

“The first to curtail the takbīr was Ziyād.”

I say: Ziyād was a governor during the time of ʿUmar, so this report may be correct. Ziyād may have established that practice when others had abandoned it. It was also narrated from al-Aswad ibn Yazīd, from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī, who said:

“ʿAlī has reminded us of a prayer that we used to perform with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, which we either forgot or deliberately abandoned. He would pronounce the takbīr whenever he rose, lowered himself, or prostrated.”

It is well known that the governors in Iraq observed the practices of the local governors, who were also imams, and had received no report from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, indicating otherwise. They saw that the people of knowledge and religious devotion whom they encountered knew no other practice, so they thought that this was part of the original Sunnah. This resulted in shortcomings concerning both the timing of prayer and its performance. They believed that delaying prayer was better than offering it earlier, as this was what the imams used to do.

The same applied to not observing the takbīr fully and to other practices that fell short of those of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Indeed, Ibn Masʿūd understood some of the governors of his time to be among the successors of whom Allah Most High said:

“But they were succeeded by generations who neglected prayer and followed their desires; so they will meet ruin.”

He would therefore say: “What will become of you when a trial engulfs you, amid which the young grow up and the old grow decrepit, and in which, if there is any abandonment