It is well known that, had he meant the time itself, he would have excepted the two sunnah rak‘ahs of Fajr and the obligatory prayer, just as an exception appears in his prohibition when he said:

“There is no prayer after dawn except two rak‘ahs.”

Since he did not mention this exception in those hadiths, we know that he meant the performance of the prayer, as authentic hadiths explicitly explain.

Moreover, the appointed time for a prescribed prayer—both its obligatory and sunnah components—cannot be a time when prayer is prohibited. The period after dawn is the time for Fajr, both its sunnah and obligatory prayers. How, then, can this be called a prohibited time? Can a time be designated as prohibited while prayer without any particular occasion is regularly prescribed in it, and one is instructed to seek out that time for prayer? This is a contradiction. Furthermore, this period has been designated as a time for prayer until sunrise, unlike Asr, whose appointed time ends when the sun turns yellow.

The prohibition is because the disbelievers prostrate to the sun, and this does not occur from the onset of dawn. Thus, the prohibition originally concerns sunrise and sunset, as in the hadith of Ibn ‘Umar. However, he prohibited prayer after the two prayers as a precaution against what might lead to the prohibited act: someone offering voluntary prayers after them might continue until praying at sunrise or sunset. The prohibition during these two periods is less stringent. For this reason, he regularly observed the two rak‘ahs after Asr until Allah took his soul.

As for the period before the Fajr prayer, there is no basis for prohibiting prayer then. Nevertheless, no prayer is prescribed as a sunnah at that time except Fajr—its sunnah and obligatory prayers. Thus, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would pray at night and perform Witr. Then, when dawn broke, he would offer the two rak‘ahs, followed by the obligatory prayer, and he would sometimes lie down