and he may have meant that there is no silence in the second rakʿa like the silence he observed in the first for the opening supplication. I say: This is in fact the most obvious sense of the report when we compare it with Abu Hurayra’s other narration: “When the Messenger of Allah would pronounce the opening takbir in prayer, he would pause briefly …,” and in that pause he would say: “O Allah, distance me from my sins …” (cited above, p. 238). It is precisely this pause—Allah knows best—that is negated by the present hadith. Imam Muslim hinted at this in his Sahih by first quoting the aforementioned report and then placing the present one immediately after it; both have the same chain, so each completes the other. Hence the hadith explicitly negates the legitimacy of the opening supplication (duʿa al-istiftah) here, but it does not negate the legitimacy of seeking refuge (istiʿadha). The jurists have disagreed—while agreeing that this is not the place for the opening supplication—whether one should seek refuge at this point. Two positions are reported from Ahmad. Some of his students linked the dispute to whether the Qurʾanic recitation in prayer is a single recitation that requires only one istiʿadha, or whether each rakʿa constitutes an independent recitation. Ibn al-Qayyim states in Zad al-Maʿad (1/86): “Relying on one istiʿadha is the stronger view, because of the authentic hadith from Abu Hurayra: when the Prophet rose for the second rakʿa he commenced the recitation without pausing. One opening supplication suffices, for nothing but remembrance intervenes between the two recitations; they are therefore like one continuous recitation interrupted only by praise of Allah, tasbih, tahlil, or blessings upon…”