I add: this is untenable, for Qur⁠an recitation is an act of worship. If it conforms to the Sunnah it is recommended; if it contravenes the Sunnah it is disliked. To say that it is neither recommended nor disliked is unintelligible with respect to any act of worship whatsoever—ponder this. Imam Muhammad, after quoting the hadith, said: “The public practice is to lighten the recitation in Maghrib by limiting it to the short surahs of al-Mufassal. We regard that practice as something that was first observed and then abandoned; perhaps the Prophet would recite part of a surah and then bow.” He then added: “This is the view we adopt; it is the position of Abu Hanifah.” The footnote editor cites a third response attributed to the scholars: the variation depends on circumstances—at times the Prophet recited long passages to demonstrate permissibility, to indicate that the time of Maghrib extends long enough, and to show that using short surahs is not obligatory. Abu al-Hasanat, however, comments: “I maintain that the first two answers are defective. 1) The first rests on the possibility of abrogation, yet abrogation is not established on mere possibility. Declaring the earlier practice abrogated would require proof that the short-surah recitation came later in time than the long-surah recitation, and that has not been established. Moreover, the forthcoming hadith of Umm al-Fadl states explicitly that the last thing she heard from the Messenger of Allah in Maghrib was Surah al-Mursalat. This means he recited al-Mursalat in Maghrib on the day before he passed away, after which he did not pray Maghrib again; Sunan al-Nasai reports this explicitly. Thus, if one were to invoke abrogation, it would abrogate the short recitations, not the long ones. 2) The second answer is also flawed, for it is difficult to prove that every occasion of a long surah involved splitting it between the two rakʿahs. In addition, al-Bukhari and others report explicitly that Jubayr b. Mutim heard the Prophet recite Surah al-Tur…"