“Recite.”

I said, “What should I recite, O Messenger of Allah?” The Prophet said:

“Recite: ‘Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak.’”

He repeated it to me until I recited it, and he realized that I was not especially pleased by it. He said:

“Perhaps you have underestimated it. You have never stood in prayer with anything like it.”

It was recorded by Ahmad (4/149).*

3500 — (Indeed, your footsteps are being recorded.)

It was recorded by al-Tirmidhi (3226), al-Tabari in his exegesis (10/100), Ibn Abi Hatim in his exegesis (10/3190), al-Hakim (2/428), and al-Bayhaqi in The Branches of Faith (3/67/2890), all through Abu Sufyan Tarif ibn Shihab, from Abu Nadrah, from Abu Sa‘id al-Khudri, who said:

Banu Salimah lived on the outskirts of Medina and wished to move closer to the mosque. Then this verse was revealed: “Indeed, it is We who give life to the dead, and record what they have sent forth and the traces they leave behind.” The Messenger of Allah then cited the foregoing words. They therefore did not move.

Al-Hakim said:

“Its chain of transmission is authentic!”

Al-Dhahabi concurred.

As for al-Tirmidhi, he said:

“A good, singular hadith.”