Mas‘ud—who was famed among the Companions for his vigorous opposition to every form of innovation—his censure of those who gathered for collective dhikr and counted their tasbih and tahmid with pebbles is too well-known to rehearse here. He is the one who said: “Follow and do not innovate; you have already been given suffice. Hold fast to the ancient way.” For that reason he used to correct his pupils for inserting the conjunction “wa” in the tashahhud, as related by al-Tahawi (1/157) and al-Bazzar in his Musnad with a sound chain. Someone so scrupulous in following the sunnah could not conceivably have altered, without the Prophet’s ﷺ permission, the very wording of the tashahhud that the Messenger of Allah had taught him. This is simply unimaginable. Add to this that he was not alone among the Companions; he himself—utterly reliable—reported the same practice from them with no disagreement. Whoever follows them, therefore, is, as the Qur’an says, “those are upon guidance from their Lord, and it is they who will prosper.” This is further corroborated by the fact that ‘A’isha likewise taught the tashahhud with the wording “as-salam ‘ala an-nabiyyi (peace be upon the Prophet).” It is recorded by al-Sarraj in his Musnad (9/1/2) and by al-Mukhlis in al-Fawaid (11/54/1) with two authentic chains. (*) The author writes in the introduction to his work Sifat Salat an-Nabi (pp. 17–25, Dar al-Ma‘arif edition): “I once came across a small booklet by Shaykh ‘Abd Allah al-Ghumari entitled Al-Qawl al-Muqni‘ fi ’r-Radd ‘ala al-Albani al-Mubtadi‘—no more than twenty-four small pages—in which he attempts to refute me regarding some points on which I had, with truth and with the fairest words, drawn attention to his hadith errors …”