I would still have prayed those two rakʿahs, performing them perfectly and with due beauty.” Abū Dāwūd relates this with a sound chain.

[Commentary]
The compiler, al-Nawawī—may Allah have mercy on him—writes in Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn, under the heading “Strong Emphasis on the Two Rakʿahs of Daybreak,” meaning the Fajr sunnah. These two rakʿahs that precede the obligatory dawn prayer enjoy several distinctive features:

1. It is Sunnah to keep them brief. Should a person prolong them he would be acting contrary to the Sunnah. Indeed, ʿĀʾishah said that he shortened them so much “I wondered whether he had recited only the Opening Chapter (al-Fātiḥah).”

2. A particular recitation is recommended: either Qul yā ayyuhā al-kāfirūn (Surah al-Kāfirūn) in the first rakʿah and Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad (Surah al-Ikhlāṣ) in the second; or, on another occasion, the verse “Qūlū āmanna billāhi wa mā unzila ilaynā …” (al-Baqarah 2:136) in the first rakʿah and “Qul yā ahla al-kitābi taʿālaw ilā kalimatin sawāʾin baynanā wa baynakum …” (Āl ʿImrān 3:64) in the second—alternating between these two patterns.

3. Of all the rawātib (regular Sunnah prayers that accompany the prescribed prayers), the Prophet ﷺ was never more constant than he was with these two rakʿahs.

4. He ﷺ declared that they are better for a person than the whole world and everything it contains, and dearer to him than the world and all it contains.

5. He ﷺ never omitted them, whether resident or travelling.

All these qualities distinguish