maintain that it has not been abrogated. Only those who cite al-Zuhrī’s statement that Dhū al-Yadayn died before Badr and that this incident occurred early on claim that it was abrogated. Al-Zuhrī’s claim of abrogation rests on this premise, which is weak: Abū Hurayrah prayed behind the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, during the incident involving Dhū al-Yadayn, yet he only embraced Islam in the year of Khaybar.

Those who cite al-Zuhrī’s statement here have rejected his claim of abrogation there, while those who maintain that the hadith of Dhū al-Yadayn was abrogated prescribe prostration after the salām. Thus, each group has claimed, without evidence, that the hadith was abrogated insofar as it contradicts its own position. Yet the hadith remains in force both in establishing that the prayer is not invalidated and in prescribing prostration after the salām. Neither ruling is opposed by any report from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, that would abrogate it.

Furthermore, abrogation can occur only through something that contradicts the abrogated ruling. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prostrated after the salām, and no Muslim has transmitted that he forbade this. The claim of abrogation is therefore invalid.

If it is said that he subsequently prostrated before the salām, then, if this occurred in a different situation—as in the hadith of Ibn Buhaynah, when he stood up after two units of prayer, or in the hadith concerning doubt—there is no contradiction. However, the person making this assumption supposed that prostrating before the salām in one situation abrogated prostrating after it in another. This is his mistake. It has not been transmitted that, in one and the same situation, he sometimes prostrated before