Muslim likewise records the report (2/162) with the additional wording: “As for Maghrib, ʿIshāʾ, and Friday, I prayed with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in his house.” This is virtually an explicit proof that he ﷺ offered nothing before the Friday Prayer, whether in his home or in the mosque; for had there been any such practice, Ibn ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him—would have transmitted it to us, just as he conveyed its post-Friday sunnah and the pre-Ẓuhr sunnah. His mentioning the latter while omitting any for Friday is the strongest evidence that Friday has no prescribed sunnah beforehand. Thus the claim of those who permit it collapses, as does the attempt to draw an analogy between Friday and Ẓuhr regarding a pre-prayer sunnah. Not a single leading imam has upheld the notion of a pre-Friday sunnah.

Hence, what has preceded makes it clear that there is no proof in the ḥadīth of Abū Ayyūb for the sunnah of four rakʿahs before the Friday Prayer after the sun has passed its zenith. For this reason the overwhelming majority of scholars agree that there is no fixed sunnah before Friday tied to a specific time and defined number of rakʿahs, because such a ruling can be established only by a statement or an action of the Prophet ﷺ, and he legislated nothing in this regard—neither by word nor