those who said this have no basis whatsoever in the Sunnah to which they can refer. Rather, the widely transmitted hadiths from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, established in the collections of authentic hadith, the Sunan, the Musnads, and elsewhere, show that in most of his prayers he repeated the glorifications more often than that, as the evidence of the hadiths has already demonstrated.

They said this, however, because they heard that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“When one of you leads the people in prayer, let him keep it brief; when he prays alone, let him prolong it as much as he wishes.”

Yet they did not know how long the prayer should be, nor did they understand the prolongation he forbade when he said to Muʿādh:

“Are you putting people to trial, O Muʿādh?”

Thus, on the basis of their own opinion, they made this the measure of what is recommended. It is well known that the duration of prayer—its obligatory and recommended elements alike—must be determined by reference to the Sunnah alone. This is knowledge that Allah and His Messenger have not left to people’s opinions. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to lead the Muslims in five prayers every day, as did his rightly guided caliphs, whom we have been commanded to follow. We must therefore investigate what the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, established as Sunnah, rather than formulate a ruling on it through personal opinion. Independent reasoning based on opinion applies only where no Sunnah has been established from the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, [and] (1) it is impermissible to take something established by the Sunnah and reject it on the basis of opinion and analogy.

This is further clarified by the fact that brevity is relative and comparative: it has no fixed measure in either language or customary usage. Some may find lengthy what others find brief, and may find brief