People hold three views concerning these regular Sunnah prayers:
Some prescribe no fixed practice in this regard. This is Mālik’s position, for he recognizes no regular Sunnah prayer apart from Witr and the two rak‘ahs before Fajr. He used to say, “Only the people of Iraq lay down such fixed prescriptions.”
Others prescribe particular prayers on the basis of weak, indeed baseless, hadiths, as found in the schools of the people of Iraq and among some followers of al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad who agree with them. Their books contain prescribed prayers and reports concerning them which those knowledgeable about the Sunnah know to have been falsely attributed to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Examples include reports that “he prayed four rak‘ahs before ‘Asr,” that “he made up the Sunnah prayer of ‘Asr,” that “he prayed six rak‘ahs before Zuhr,” or “four after it,” or that “he regularly observed the Duhā prayer,” and similar hadiths falsely attributed to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.
More serious still is what some authors writing on “heart-softening exhortations and the merits of good deeds” mention concerning weekly and annual prayers. These include the prayers for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday mentioned in the works of Abū Tālib, Abū Hāmid, ‘Abd al-Qādir, and others. They also include the “thousandfold” prayer, al-Alfiyya, at the beginning of Rajab and in mid-Sha‘bān; the “twelvefold” prayer, al-Ithnā ‘Ashariyya, on the first Friday night of Rajab; and the prayer on the night of the twenty-seventh of