and ‘Ali ibn ‘Abis is weak. Israel contradicted him, narrating it from Abu Ishaq, through the same chain, from ‘Ali as a report attributed to the Companion. This is more authentic. Al-Nasa’i recorded it (454/708), and all its narrators are trustworthy.

In sum, the hadith is authentic both as an account of his practice and of his command, peace and blessings be upon him. It indicates recommendation, as al-Hafiz stated in al-Fath.

This hadith under discussion has exposed some of those involved in this noble discipline—and those who trade upon it—among publishers who claim knowledge and writers, though I would not call them authors in this field. What they all have in common is that they denied al-Bukhari’s narration reporting the Prophet’s practice, peace and blessings be upon him: some explicitly and others implicitly.

The first was Muhammad Fu’ad ‘Abd al-Baqi. Beneath the hadith of al-‘Ala ibn al-Musayyab in al-Adab al-Mufrad (p. 312/1211), he wrote: “Al-Bukhari: 4—Book of Minor Ablution; 75—Chapter on the Merit of One Who Goes to Bed in a State of Minor Ablution. Muslim: 48—Book of Remembrance, Supplication, and Repentance ... hadiths 56, 57, and 58.”

This is mistaken in two respects. First, al-Bukhari narrated the hadith at the place he indicated in the Book of Minor Ablution only through the route of Mansur, which reports the Prophet’s command, peace and blessings be upon him, not his practice, as was explained above. Had he known this, he should have attributed it to the Book of Supplications, for the hadith is found there, as previously indicated by its number.

Second, Muslim did not narrate the hadith at all as an account of the Prophet’s practice, peace and blessings be upon him, neither through the route of al-‘Ala ibn al-Musayyab nor through any other, as this source analysis has shown.

The second was Shaykh al-Jilani, in his commentary on al-Adab al-Mufrad (2/619), for he