“In my view, this is not preserved, for what is well established from Ibn ʿUmar is that he narrated from Ḥafṣah that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would pray the two rakʿahs before dawn. He said: ‘That was a time when I would not enter upon the Prophet.’”

I say: This objection is valid only if his verdict on the hadith—that it is not preserved—is valid. But this is refuted by the previously mentioned authentic chain of transmission from Mujāhid, from Ibn ʿUmar. It is apparent that Ibn Naṣr was unaware of it; otherwise, he would have cited it and would not have followed it with the foregoing remarks.

Moreover, neither the hadith of Layth that he cited—let alone other reports of which he had no knowledge—states that Ibn ʿUmar saw him on those many occasions while he was resident, such that the hadith of his sister Ḥafṣah could be used to rebut it. It is possible that this occurred while the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was outside his home on certain occasions, such as the Battle of the Trench. This applies to the two rakʿahs before the Maghrib prayer. As for the two rakʿahs before dawn, it is established that he never omitted them, whether travelling or resident. Ibn ʿUmar must have travelled with him often, including on the Farewell Pilgrimage, and thus saw him pray them on some of his journeys. Allah knows best.

One instance of the injustice done to the authentic sunnah by certain conceited students of knowledge—who have not yet come to appreciate the worth of knowledge and its scholars—is that one of them wrote a treatise entitled, Reflections on the Description of the Prophet’s Prayer, in which he declared dozens of authentic hadiths weak, giving precedence to the narrator criticism and hidden defects alleged concerning some of them, without examining whether the defect was actually disqualifying, without paying any heed to the principle that a hadith is strengthened through numerous routes of transmission, and without giving due weight to Companion reports that carry the ruling of reports attributed to the Prophet. He even went so far as to declare weak the hadith of the opening supplication: “Glory be to You, O Allah, and praise be to You ...,” despite its having been reported from five Companions and others, and despite ʿUmar teaching it to the people while leading them in prayer, raising his voice with it in order to teach them. Its chain of transmission from him is authentic, as he himself acknowledged; yet ʿAlī criticized it! This is another example before