one of you sits during the prayer, let him say: “All greetings, prayers, and good things are for Allah. Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and Allah’s mercy and blessings. Peace be upon us and upon Allah’s righteous servants. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.”’”

Other wordings of the tashahhud (the testimony recited while seated in prayer) have also been transmitted from him, as Muslim narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās, and as Ibn ʿUmar used to teach it to the people. Muslim also narrated it from Abū Mūsā, but that is the same tashahhud as Ibn Masʿūd’s. Al-Bukhārī, however, included only Ibn Masʿūd’s tashahhud. All these wordings are permissible: the Quran was revealed in seven forms, so such variation is all the more permissible in the tashahhud.

The point is that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, explained that when someone praying says, “Peace be upon us and upon Allah’s righteous servants,” this greeting reaches every righteous servant of Allah in heaven and on earth. This includes the angels and the righteous among humankind and the jinn, as Allah Most High relates the jinn saying:

“Some of us are righteous and some are otherwise; we have followed different paths.”

The second kind is greeting him with peace upon entering a mosque. As reported in the Musnad and the Sunan, Fātimah, daughter of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and may Allah be pleased with him—narrated that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“When one of you enters the mosque, let him say: ‘In the name of Allah, and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah. O Allah, forgive me my sins and open for me the gates of Your mercy.’ When he leaves, let him say: ‘In the name of Allah, and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah.