Allah be pleased with him, did not live to see the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; rather, he died two years before it.

This accords with the well-known hadith recorded in the Sunan collections of Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, and Ibn Mājah, from ʿAwn ibn ʿAbd Allāh, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, may Allah be pleased with him, who said that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“When one of you bows, let him say three times, ‘Glory be to my Lord, the Magnificent’—and that is the minimum. When he prostrates, let him say three times, ‘Glory be to my Lord, the Most High’—and that is the minimum.”

Abū Dāwūd said, “This report has a disconnected chain: ʿAwn did not live to meet ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd.” Al-Bukhārī said the same in his History.

Al-Tirmidhī said, “Its chain of transmission is not connected: ʿAwn ibn ʿAbd Allāh did not live to meet Ibn Masʿūd.” ʿAwn was one of the well-known scholars of Kufa and belonged to ʿAbd Allāh’s family. It has been said that he received this report from the scholars of his own family.

For this reason, the jurists relied on this hadith concerning the repetitions of glorification, because of its supporting reports. They came to describe three repetitions as “the minimum degree of completeness” or “the minimum for bowing.” This indicates that the fullest degree involves more than this.

Thus, the assertion made by some jurists following the principles of al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad—may Allah be pleased with them both—and others, that the Sunnah is for the imam to limit himself to three repetitions of glorification, is like the assertion that the Sunnah is not to prolong standing upright after bowing, or to delay the prayer until the end of its allotted time, and similar claims. For