through the route of ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, from Sufyan, from Abu Malik al-Ashja‘i, from Abu Hazim, from Abu Hurayrah, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, with this wording. Abu Dawud added:

“Ahmad said—I think he meant—that one should neither offer the greeting nor have it offered to him, lest a person be caused to doubt his prayer and leave it while still uncertain about it.”

Ahmad then narrated from Sufyan, who said: “I heard my father say: I asked Abu ‘Amr al-Shaybani about the Prophet’s statement, ‘There is no ighrar in the prayer,’ and he replied: ‘Rather, it is: There is no gharar in the prayer. Gharar means that one should not leave it while thinking that some part of it still remains to be performed, but should attain certainty and completion.’”

Al-Hakim said: “Authentic according to Muslim’s conditions.” Al-Dhahabi agreed with him, and it is as they said.

A point of benefit:

Ibn al-Athir said in al-Nihayah:

“Gharar means deficiency; the gharar of sleep is its scantiness. By ‘the gharar of prayer,’ he meant a deficiency in its manner and pillars. The gharar of the taslim is for the respondent to say, ‘And upon you,’ without saying, ‘Peace.’ It was also said that by gharar he meant sleep; that is, there is to be no sleep during the prayer.

“Al-taslim is transmitted in both the accusative and genitive cases. Whoever recites it in the genitive makes it coordinate with ‘the prayer,’ as mentioned above; while whoever recites it in the accusative makes it coordinate with gharar, so that the meaning is: There is to be neither deficiency nor taslim in the prayer, because speech in prayer other than its prescribed words is not permissible.”

I say: It is clear that Imam Ahmad’s preceding explanation applies only to the accusative reading. If this reading is authentic, then ‘the gharar of the taslim’ should not be interpreted to include the greeting of one who is not praying to one who is praying, as is apparent from Imam Ahmad’s words. Rather, it should be restricted to the praying person’s returning the greeting of one who greeted him, for at first they used to return the greeting