Abd al-Raziq said...

Abd al-Raziq said: Ibn Jarih told us saying: ‘Ata’ informed us and said: The used to read, during the lifetime of the Prophet: Peace be upon you O Prophet (al-salam alayka ayyuha al-Nabi). When he passed away they started to say: peace be upon the Prophet, and this being a veracious isnad. (التحيات لله السلام عليک ايها النبي و رحمة الله. السلام علينا و علي عباد الله الصالحين. اشهد ان لا اله الا الله و اشهد ان محمدا عبده و رسوله ... (او) اشهد ان محمد رسول الله ).

{dir="rtl"} Regarding this diversity, al-Qadi 135 said: This indicates that when one drops a word that is already dropped in some narrated tashahhudat, his tashahhud would be correct. Based on this, it is permissible to say: The least satisfactory words to be uttered in tashahhud being: These were nine forms of tashahhud 136 reported from the that having differed in the words. Had they been among the verbal traditions reported by meaning, we would have said, maybe!

But they are among the mutawatir (successive) acts that were performed several times everyday by all the , who were numbering tens of thousands. The noteworthy point here is that every narrator of each tashahhud claims that the Messenger used to teach him tashahhud as teaching the Qur’an, and that tashahhud of Umar was uttered by him from over the Minbar of the Messenger of Allah, before all the Sahabah without being disapproved by any of them, as reported by Malik in al-Muwatta’.

What is noteworthy too being the fact that these tashahhudat, despite divergence in their words, multiplicity of their forms and abundance of their narrators, were all devoid of sending benediction upon the Prophet. The , as reported by Ibrahim al-Nakha’i, were sufficed with saying tashahhud and: peace be upon you O Prophet and mercy of Allah.

There was disagreement among the Sunnah leaders regarding the obligation of sending benediction upon the Prophet in the obligatory (daily) prayers: Abu Hanifah and his followers never consider it obligatory while al-Shafi’i made it a provision (for accepting the prayers)!

In al-Bahr al-zakhir, Ibn Nujaym says: The obligation implied in the holy verse: “Send blessings on him”, being prescribing it only once throughout the whole life whether during the salat or in any other time, as the ordinance never necessitates any repetition. This opinion got the agreement and concurrence the of all ulama’.