Question:
Salamalaikum Sheikh,
In your reply to my previous question you stated that the short form is what the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) mostly used, and others used when addressing him, as narrated by so many Sahaba from him such as `Ali b. Abi Talib, Ibn `Umar, `A’isha, Anas,etc
So Sheikh can you please provide me any hadeeth in whose athaar(text) we find the shorter form of salawat[i.e Sallahu Alaihi wasallam] was used by either Prophet(saw) or his noble companions.
I do know places were this short form was supposedly used by either middle narrators or the authors of the book, but I’m not certain in this issue. So please provide a hadeeth in which this shorter form was used by Sahaba (ra) or Prophet (Saw).
Jazakallah khair
Answer:
`Alaykum as-Salam,
Here are some examples not only of the short form but also of the long form without mention of salawat on the Aal:
(1) Abu Humayd al-Sa`idi (Allah be well-pleased with him) said they asked the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) how to invoke blessings on him and he replied: “Say: O Allah, bless Muhammad, his spouses, and his progeny (salli `ala Muhammadin wa-azwajih wa-dhurriyyatih), as you have blessed Ibrahim, and grant favor to (wa-barik `ala) Muhammad, his spouses, and his progeny, as you have granted favor to the family of Ibrahim. Truly You are worthiest of glory and majesty!” (Bukhari and Muslim)
(2) In Abu Sa`id al-Khudri’s (Allah be well-pleased with him) version of the same event the reply was: “O Allah, bless Muhammad Your servant and Messenger, as You have blessed the family of Ibrahim, and grant favor to Muhammad and the family of Muhammad, as You have granted favor to the family of Ibrahim.” (Bukhari)
(3) Jibril said to the Holy Prophet (upon both of them blessings and peace): “Truly Allah Most High has put an angel in charge, from the time you were created until the time you are resurrected, whereby no one invokes blessings on you (salla `alayka) from your Ummah except he says: ‘And you also, Allah bless you (salla Allah `alayka).'” (Tabarani) The hadiths to that general meaning are mass-transmitted and famous.
(4) Usayd b. Hudayr (Allah be well-pleased with him) said: “Allah bless you, Messenger of Allah, (salla Allahu `alayka ya Rasulullah) and may He reward you goodness on our behalf!” whereupon the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) said: “And upon you also, you (Hadrami people) as far as I know are full of modesty and patience.” (Ibn Abi `Asim)
(5) Abu Barza al-Aslami (Allah be well-pleased with him) said that when the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) taught the Companions the du`a of asking forgiveness for any gathering they said: “O Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and greet you (salla Allahu `alayka wa-sallam)! How could we hear this [i.e. asking forgiveness] from you?” He said: “This is the expiation of any gathering.” (Nasa’i, Sunan Kubra)
(6) `Ali and Fatima (Allah be well-pleased with them) said that when they asked the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) to give them a servant he said: “Shall I not show you what is better for the two of you than the red camels?” `Ali said: “Yes, O Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless you! (salla Allahu `alayk).” He said: “Takbir, tasbih and tahmid totalling 100.” (Nasa’i, Sunan Kubra)
(7) `Ali (Allah ennoble his face) also narrated that the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) said, regarding the invocation for memorizing the Qur’an: “Then invoke blessings upon me and all the Prophets of Allah Most High” (Tirmidhi)
(8) And when `Ali (Allah ennoble his face) entered upon `Umar (Allah be well-pleased with him and make him pleased) who lay in his shroud, he said: “Allah bless you (salla Allahu `alayk)! There is no one with whose record of deeds I would love to meet Allah most than this shrouded one.” (Ibn Sa`d, Hakim). Note also that the great invocation of blessings on the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) which Sayyidina `Ali (Allah be well-pleased with him and make him pleased) taught, does not mention the Aal. We reproduced its text in full here: https://eshaykh.com/sufism/tijaniyyah-and-salat-al-fatih/ It is a difficult text but Imam al-Sakhawi devoted several pages to its correct vowelization and meanings in al-Qawl al-Badi` (`Awwama ed. p. 221-224).
(9) `Itban b. Malik (Allah be well-pleased with him) said to the Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace): “I am losing my sight, so if you – Allah bless you (salla Allahu `alayk) – can come and pray in my house…..” (Bayhaqi, Sunan Kubra)
(10) Zayd b. Ka`b al-Bahzi (Allah be well-pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) went out with ihram toward Mecca, and that when he reached al-Rawha’he and his group saw a wild ass that had been hamstrung. He said: “Leave it, its owner will show up any moment,” whereupon al-Bahzi came and he was its owner. He said: “O Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and greet you! (Ya Rasulullah salla Allahu `alayka wa-sallam). It is yours to dispose of as you all wish. The Prophet then ordered Abu Bakr (Allah be well-pleased with him and make him pleased) to quarter it and distribute it. (Nasa’i)
(11) When he (upon him blessings and peace) said for Abu Bakr to lead prayers during his final illness, our Mother `A’isha (Alah be well-pleased with her) said: “Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and greet you! (ya Rasulullah salla Allahu `alayka wa-sallam), truly Abu Bakr is a man prone to sorrow….” (Ibn Abi Shayba)
(12) The question of Ibn `Umar in Sahih Muslim, “Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless and greet you! (ya Rasulullah salla Allahu `alayka wa-sallam), you said that the prayer of the man sitting is half that of the one standing…”
(13) al-Hasan b. `Ali b. Abi Talib (Allah be well-pleased with them) said that the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) said: “Do not turn my grave into a yearly festival. Invoke blessings on me and send greetings (sallu `alayya wa-sallimu), for your salat and your salam reach me wherever you are.” (Musnad Abi Ya`la)
These are just a few reports and there are more. They all indicate that the singular invocation of blessings on the Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) – meaning to single him out by saying salla Allahu `alayhi/alayka wa-sallam – is a Prophetic sunnah and a sunnah of the Companions including his blessed relatives, nor was the omission of the Aal in the salawat an invention of later scholars or “middle narrators” as speculated, and that it is also permissible to invoke blessings on other than Prophets “not for magnification (ta`ziman) and salute (tahiyyatan) but as a supplication on their behalf and a benediction (du`a’an wa-tabrikan)” as stated by Imam al-Bayhaqi (Haytami, al-Durr al-Mandud p. 71). In any case it would be enough, as already stated, that Allah Most High commanded it in the Qur’an in the singular mode: {Invoke blessings and salutations ON HIM} period, as I said before and as explicitly stated by al-Sakhawi in the passage translated further down.
However, the Holy Prophet (upon him and his House blessings and peace) desired to include his family, relatives, and all believers into the benefit of this invocation of blessings upon his noble person, hence he taught the Ummah to include the Aal in the invocation during the last tashahud in Salat and, by extension, outside Salat as well, as a supererogatory good deed that benefits the person who prays in such a fashion. But the default mode of invocation is as they practiced above.
Nevertheless:
(i) Even inside tashahhud the core part of invoking blessing is the invocation of blessings on the Prophet himself since he literally said: “When one of you prays let him start with the glorification of Allah Most High, then His praise, then let him invoke blessings on His Prophet, then let him supplicate for whatever he wishes.” (Ahmad, Sunan, Tahawi, Sahih Ibn Khuzayma, Hakim, etc.; from Fudala b. `Ubayd); and “When you pray and then sit, glorify Allah as He deserves, then invoke blessings on me (thumma salli `alayya), then supplicate Him.” (Tirmidhi, hasan; from Fudala b. `Ubayd).
The above evidence is confirmed by the collective weight of several other hadiths of lesser rank such as Ibn `Umar’s: “The Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) would teach us tashahud and he mentioned the tahiyat, until he said ‘and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger,’ then he invokes blessing on the Prophet (thumma yusalli `ala al-Nabiyyi)” (Daraqutni); “There is no prayer for whoever does not invoke blessing on the Prophet” (Ibn Majah, Tabarani, Daraqutni, Hakim; from Sahl b. Sa`d al-Sa`idi); “O Burayda, when you sit in your prayer do not leave out tashahhud and salat over me (was-salat `alayya), for it is the zakat of your prayer, and give salam to all the Prophets and all the righteous servants of Allah” (Daraqutni); “Prayer is not accepted except with purity and with the invocation of blessing on me” (Daraqutni from `A’isha).
In all the above hadiths the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) did not add “and his Aal” because adding it constitutes the betterment (afdaliyya) of the Salat, not its essence; just as adding his spouses (azwaj) and progeny (dhurriyya) and all Prophets constitutes betterment and not the essence. There is a beautiful page to that effect in the book of hafiz al-Sakhawi on the immense merits of invoking blessings on the Prophet entitled al-Qawl al-Badi` fil-Salat `ala al-Habib al-Shafi` (`Awwama ed. p. 196-197). He states:
<<If someone asks: “What is the reason you differed between the salat on the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) and the salat on the Aal in obligatoriness, although the latter is joined (ma`tuf) to the former, when the basis of obligatoriness is his saying: ‘Say such-and-such’? So why did you make one part obligatory and not the other?”
<<The answer is – as stated [by the scholars] – from two perspectives: FIRST, the main basis for the status of obligatoriness (al-mu`tamad fil-wujub) is none other than the command proclaimed in the Qur’an where Allah Most High said:
إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ وَمَلَـٰٓٮِٕڪَتَهُ ۥ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِىِّۚ يَـٰٓأَيُّہَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيۡهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسۡلِيمًا
{Truly Allah and His angels exalt and bless the Prophet; O Believers, exalt and bless him! and do salute him with the worthiest salutation!} Surat al-Ahzab 33:56
So He did not command to invoke blessings on his Aal. As for the Prophet’s (upon him blessings and peace) teaching of how to invoke blessings on him when they queried him: he showed them the obligatory extent, then he added on top of it the level of perfection over and beyond the level of obligatoriness, whereas they had only asked him about blessing on him. This is an offshoot of the difference of opinion concerning a command potentially being both literal and figurative; and the correct position is that it can be that. The one queried may answer with more than what he was originally asked for some beneficial purpose, as took place with the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace) many times. For example, when he was asked about purifying oneself with seawater he replied: “Its water is purifying and its carrion is licit to eat” although there had been no mention of the carrion of the sea in their question.
<< SECOND, his reply to those who queried him came up with various additions and omissions. The part that is deemed obligatory can only be what all the different versions agree upon, for if everything was equally obligatory, there would not have been shorter versions at certain times. Now, in certain sound (sahih) versions there is no mention of salat on the Aal, as in Sahih al-Bukhari in the narration from Abu Sa`id [no.2 in the list above] but he asserted it in the invocation of favor (barakah) although they had not asked him about barakah, nor was he commanded it in the Qur’anic Verse. Also, in the hadith of Abu Humayd [no.1 in the list above] that is agreed upon, there is no mention of the Aal in the Salat part nor in the Barakah part either. He only said: “and on his spouses and progeny,” dhurriyya being more general and Aal more specific.
<<If it is asked: “Why then in the obligatory modality of invoking blessing on him did you confine yourself to the wording ‘O Allah bless Muhammad,’ and you did not include the rest of his words, namely his simile?” The reply is: because the simile was not mentioned in one of his replies, namely in the hadith of Zayd b. Kharija [“Say: O Allah, bless Muhammad and the Aal of Muhammad.” (Sunan al-Nasa’i)], indicating that it was not obligatory.>>
End of al-Sakhawi’s words in his book al-Qawl al-Badi`.
Hence in the strictest of all Schools regarding invoking blessings on the Prophet inside prayer, i.e. the Shafi`i school, as Imam al-Nawawi puts it, “the non-negotiable, undisputed obligation in our school” (fard bi-la khilaf `indana) is to bless the Prophet, period (Nawawi, Majmu`). As for the Aal, “our [Shafi`i] madhhab is that salat on the Aal is a sunnah in the last tashahud, not the first” (Haytami, al-Durr al-Mandud p. 92). Our teacher Dr. Wahbat al-Zuhayli even went so far as to say (in his Damascus classes on `Umdat al-Salik) that if one adds the Aal in the first tashahud, one has to repeat the prayer! but I am certain that this is not Imam al-Nawawi’s position, and Allah knows best.
(ii) Even reciting the Salat Ibrahimiyya itself is not an obligatory part of Salat according to the Hanafis and Malikis, nor even its minimum of blessing the Holy Prophet (upon him blessings and peace).
Regarding the latter point Qadi `Iyad in his Shifa quoted al-Tabari and al-Tahawi as citing consensus over it, and he added that Imam al-Shafi`i had “deviated” from that consensus by stipulating that blessing the Prophet inside Salat was categorically obligatory. The Shafi`i scholars consider this to be an error in Kitab al-Shifa and, in the words of al-Qastallani, “min abtal al-batil” and “inkar munkar,” and he refuted that passage of the Shifa clause by clause in his book on the proofs and fiqh of Salawat entitled Masalik al-Hunafa ila Mashari` al-Salat `ala al-Nabi al-Mustafa (p. 112-113) while Qutb al-Din Abu al-Khayr Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Zubaydi al-Khaydari (821-893) – one of the foremost disciples of Hafiz Ibn Hajar – authored a book about it which he entitled: Zahr al-Riyad fi Radd Ma Shanna`ahu `Iyad in which he showed that among those who considered Salat Ibrahimiyya or at the very least Salat on Sayyidina Muhammad (upon him blessings and peace) obligatory are:
– Ibn Mas`ud, Allah be well-pleased with him (Hakim, Ibn `Abd al-Barr in al-Tamhid)
– `Umar b. al-Khattab, Allah be well-pleased with him and make him pleased (Nawawi, Majmu`)
– his son `Abd Allah b. `Umar (Allah be well-pleased with him) who narrated from the Prophet (upon him blessings and peace): “There is no prayer without recitation of Qur’an, tashahud, and invocation of blessing on me” (Abu `Ali al-Ma`mari in `Amal al-Yawm wal-Layla with a good chain according to Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari; al-Fayruzabadi adduces that chain in al-Silat wal-Bushar p. 115-116)
– Muhammad al-Baqir (Allah be well-pleased with him) according to Imam al-Qastallani in Masalik al-Hunafa (p. 107), al-Sha`bi (Bayhaqi, Khilafiyyaat with a strong chain according to Shaykh `Abd Allah Siraj al-Din in his book al-Salat `ala al-Nabiyyi salla Allah `alayhi wa-Alihi wa-sallam p. 48), Muhammad b. Ka`b al-Qurazi, Muqatil b. Hayyan, and Ishaq b. Rahuyah (all as mentioned by al-Mawardi in al-Hawi al-Kabir, his encyclopedia of Shafi`i fiqh) all said that invoking blessing on the Holy Prophet at the end of Salat is obligatory. So did Ahmad b. Hanbal (in Masa’il Abi Zur`a). Ibn Qudama in more than one place of the Mughni said this is the correct position of the Hanbali School, namely that one has to repeat the prayer if he deliberately leaves out such invocation.
– Imam al-Shafi`i (Allah be well-pleased with him) who said in Kitab al-Umm that the last tashahud and the salat on the Prophet are equally obligatory on the basis of the verse commanding the latter as we have already said repeatedly.
– This is even the position of three major Maliki imams: (i) the jurist of Alexandria Muhammad b. Ibrahim al-Mawwaz (d. 269, Allah have mercy on him and all of those mentioned in this article), whom Qadi `Iyad himself acknowledges in his commentary on Sahih Muslim (Ikmal al-Mu`lim 2:296), and he says “one of our masters Muhammad b. al-Mawwaz, took the same the position as al-Shafi`i”; (ii) Ibn `Abd al-Barr according to Imam al-Qastallani in Masalik al-Hunafa (p. 107); (iii) Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn al-`Arabi who says in Ahkam al-Qur’an (under verse 33:56): “Muhammad Ibn al-Mawwaz and al-Shafi`i said that invoking blessing on the Prophet inside prayer is fard, and whoever leaves it out, his prayer is invalid, and this is the sound position.”
A rather rare Shafi`i position is that the invocation of blessings on the Aal is also obligatory in the last tashahud. Al-Sakhawi in al-Qawl al-Badi` (`Awwama ed. p. 195-196) mentions that this was held by (i) al-Turbuji – a Shafi`i scholar who authored commentaries on al-Shirazi’s Muhadhdhab and al-Ghazali’s Wasit; (ii) Abu Ishaq al-Marwazi as cited by al-Bayhaqi in his Shu`ab; and (iii) al-Shafi`i himself in a narration from his student Harmala, as implied by al-Tahawi’s words in Sharh Mushkil al-Aathaar according to Ibn Hajar.
And Allah knows best.
To conclude we narrate from our teacher in Damascus and Aleppo the last remnant of the saintly hadith masters of old, Dr. Nur al-Din `Itr, from his teacher and father-in-law the hafiz `Abd Allah Siraj al-Din in his book al-Salat `ala al-Nabiyyi salla Allah `alayhi wa-Alihi wa-sallam (p. 235-236):
<<`Abd b. Humayd and Ibn al-Mundhir narrated with their chains from Mujahid, Allah be well-pleased with him, that he said: When the verse {Truly Allah and His angels exalt and bless the Prophet; O Believers, exalt and bless him! and do salute him with the worthiest salutation!} (33:56) was revealed, Abu Bakr (Allah be well-pleased with him and make him pleased) said: “Messenger of Allah, whenever Allah descends immense goodness upon you, He always grants us a share in it!” whereupon Allah revealed:
هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُصَلِّى عَلَيۡكُمۡ وَمَلَـٰٓٮِٕكَتُهُ ۥ لِيُخۡرِجَكُم مِّنَ ٱلظُّلُمَـٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِۚ وَڪَانَ بِٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ رَحِيمً۬ا
{He it is Who blesses you, and His angels (bless you), that He may bring you forth from darkness unto light; and He is ever Merciful to the believers} Surat al-Ahzab 33:43
<<So then Allah the Exalted blesses and exalts His Most Honored Beloved – upon him blessings and peace – with an exaltation that befits the Station of his Prophethood and the Office of His Messengership and the Rank of his Means and his Immense Merit that is exclusive to him; and He also blesses and exalts those who believe in him – upon him blessings and peace – and follow him, out of bounty for them, just because they follow him! He treats the follower with munificence because of the munificence of the one he follows, and thus the follower becomes most ennobled because of the Highest Nobility of the one he follows!>>
Blessings, peace, mercy, glory and honor on the Prophet, his Family, his Spouses, his Progeny, all his Companions, and all the Friends of Allah, as long as the rememberers mention him and the heedless are heedless of him.
Hajj Gibril Haddad
