The Second Ḥadīth
Yazīd ibn Rumān narrates from Ṣāliḥ ibn Khawwāt ibn Jubayr, from someone who performed the fear prayer with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ during the Expedition of Dhāt al-Riqaʿ: A detachment lined up with him while another faced the enemy. He led those by his side in one rakʿah, then remained standing while they completed the prayer on their own. They then withdrew and took position opposite the enemy. The other detachment came forward, and he led them in the remaining rakʿah; he then stayed seated while they finished on their own, after which he pronounced the taslīm with them.
The Companion who actually prayed with the Prophet ﷺ was Sahl ibn Abī Ḥathmah.
Rare expressions
• Dhāt al-Riqaʿ: an expedition in which the Prophet ﷺ marched against the tribe of Ghatafān, whose encampments lay in the highlands of Najd between Madinah and Qasīm. The armies merely faced one another; no fighting occurred.
• It was so named, it is said, because the Companions’ feet became sore from walking barefoot, so they wrapped them with pieces of cloth.
Overall meaning
In this narration the enemy was not in the direction of the qiblah; their territory lay to the east of Madinah. One group therefore stood with the Prophet ﷺ while the other remained opposite the enemy, whom the worshippers thus had behind them. The Prophet ﷺ led the first group in one rakʿah, then rose with them for the second and stayed standing while they completed one rakʿah individually, pronounced the taslīm, and withdrew to confront the enemy. The second group then advanced; he led them in the remaining rakʿah, stayed seated, and they rose to finish a rakʿah on their own, after which he gave the taslīm with them.
Scholarly disagreement
The fear prayer is reported from the Prophet ﷺ in numerous formats. Ibn Ḥazm held that fourteen of them are sound and even wrote a monograph on the topic; al-Nawawī counted sixteen; Ibn al-ʿArabī, twenty-four; whereas Ibn al-Qayyim, in Zād al-Hadī, judged them to be six or seven forms. These scholars tended to treat every variation in the wording of a single account as a distinct practice of the Prophet ﷺ, while in reality much of the variation stems from the narrators themselves.
Imam Mālik adopted the format related in the ḥadīth of Sahl ibn Abī Ḥathmah, whereas Imam al-Shāfiʿī preferred the version transmitted by Ṣāliḥ ibn Khawwāt.