(4) The fourth benefit: Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar states in Fath al-Bari, 11/139: “From the fact that the Prophet ﷺ, when asked, taught his Companions the precise formula, scholars have inferred that this is the best way of offering salat (invoking blessings) upon him, for he would choose for himself only what is most noble and most excellent. Consequently, if someone swore an oath to send the finest salat upon him, the way to discharge that oath is to use this wording. This is the position preferred by al-Nawawi in al-Rawdah.” Ibn Hajar then adds: “The evidence also suggests that the oath can be fulfilled by the wording found in the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, because the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Whoever wishes to have the fullest measure when he invokes blessings upon us should say: O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad the Prophet …’ and so on.” I reply: that hadith is weak and cannot be taken as proof, as explained above (p. 928). The correct view, God willing, is therefore the one endorsed by al-Nawawi. For this reason Taj al-Din ʿAbd al-Wahhab ibn Taqi al-Din al-Subki says in Tabaqat al-Shafiʿiyyah, 1/96: “I heard my father—may God have mercy on him—say: The best salat upon the Prophet ﷺ is this very formula. Whoever uses it has certainly invoked blessings upon the Prophet and will obtain the reward promised for salat offered with certainty. Anyone who employs a different wording is uncertain whether he has performed the required invocation, because when the Companions asked, ‘How should we invoke blessings upon you?’ he replied, ‘Say …,’ thereby making their salat consist precisely in saying that formula. When one servant utters it, he is asking Allah to bless Muhammad ﷺ just as He blessed Ibrahim and his family. When another servant later utters it, he necessarily requests a further blessing distinct from the one sought by the first, for although the two requests resemble each other they diverge by virtue of the different supplicants, and both supplications are answered. Since salat upon the Prophet ﷺ is an answered prayer, what the second person seeks cannot be identical to what the first already obtained; otherwise it would entail obtaining what has already been obtained.”