“truthful,” and in al-Tahdhīb he further notes that the man is trustworthy. He adds: “Someone of this standing is only undermined when he contradicts the reliable narrators; in that case his report is deemed anomalous.”

I say: this particular ḥadīth of his is sound, because he has not opposed the trustworthy narrators; on the contrary, it concurs with the marfūʿ report of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughaffal which states:

“Between every two calls to prayer there is a prayer.” On the third time he said: “for whoever wishes.”

It was recorded by the Six and by Ibn Naṣr.

Some later scholars cited this ḥadīth to argue for the legitimacy of a pre-Jumuʿah sunnah prayer, yet that inference is invalid. Al-Bukhārī and others have established that in the Prophet’s time there was nothing on Friday except the first adhān and the iqāmah, with the sermon in between, as I explained in my treatise Al-Ajwibah al-Nāfiʿah. For this reason al-Būṣayrī said in Az-Zawāʾid—after quoting this ḥadīth of ʿAbd Allāh (folio 72/1) and calling it the best evidence for the alleged sunnah—

“This is impossible in his ﷺ practice, for between the adhān and the iqāmah he would deliver the sermon; therefore no prayer can take place between them.”

Every report that speaks of the Prophet ﷺ performing a sunnah prayer before Jumuʿah is wholly inauthentic; some are even weaker than others, as shown by az-Zaylaʿī in Naṣb al-Rāyah (2/206-207), Ibn Ḥajar in Fatḥ al-Bārī (2/341), and others. I have examined several of them in the aforementioned treatise (pp. 23-26) and in Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfah.

The correct understanding is that the ḥadīth merely affirms the legitimacy of praying before every obligatory prayer for which it is proven that the Prophet ﷺ either performed it, commanded it, or tacitly approved it—such as Maghrib, concerning which sound evidence exists for his action, instruction, and approval.

As for that action and instruction, there is an explicit ḥadīth narrated by ʿAbd Allāh al-Muzanī: “Indeed, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ …”