First: his claimed conflict with the Quran and the hadith concerning the waiving of half the prayer. The falsity of this alleged conflict has already been demonstrated, and it has been shown to be consistent with both; so there is no need to repeat it.

Second: he also claims that it conflicts with his five hadiths. Yet you have learned that their chains are weak and that they are objectionable reports which contradict the authentic hadiths, including the hadith under discussion. That is why no one has declared them authentic!

Third: it is possible that the two rak‘ahs were prescribed when fifty prayers were made obligatory upon him, peace and blessings be upon him, on the night of the Night Journey; then they were reduced to five, each of them being made complete as four rak‘ahs! This is a merely rational possibility—and one born of his own reasoning!—whose very mention makes a refutation unnecessary, because it conflicts with the authentic texts.

Fourth: because it is supposedly mass-transmitted that Gabriel explained its number of rak‘ahs on the morning following the night of the Night Journey! This is a lie and a fabrication that no Muslim before him had uttered. It is merely a repetition of the second alleged conflict. What is mass-transmitted is only Gabriel’s leading the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in prayer, not an explanation of the number of rak‘ahs. Indeed, it would not be far from correct to say that it is mass-transmitted that it was initially prescribed as two rak‘ahs at a time, since the Ummah has received the hadith concerning it with acceptance, as mentioned just above.

In short, the man is obsessed with contradicting the scholars, due to his poor understanding, which makes the authentic appear weak to him and the weak appear authentic. Among the authentic hadiths that he likewise declared weak is the previously cited hadith of Umar (p. 748): “The traveller’s prayer ... is two rak‘ahs, complete and not shortened ... as spoken by your Prophet” (p. 23), and the hadith of Ibn Abbas: “Allah prescribed the prayer, through the tongue of your Prophet, as two rak‘ahs for the traveller ...” He also judged it anomalous! (pp. 22–23).

Part of his malice and deception of his readers is that he does not cite these authentic hadiths which he declares weak, lest the readers realize that they are authentic and at least come to doubt his grading of them as weak. For the hadith of Ibn Abbas was narrated by Muslim, Abu Awanah, Ibn Khuzaymah, and Ibn Hibban in