Bahth fi Hadith Qays ibn Amr fi Qada Sunnat al-Fajr bad al-Farida - Dimn Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Bahth fi Hadith Qays ibn Amr fi Qada Sunnat al-Fajr bad al-Farida (An Investigation into the Hadith of Qays ibn Amr on Making Up the Sunnah of Fajr after the Obligatory Prayer) is a short hadith treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (1312–1386 AH / 1894–1966 CE) examining the transmission and legal implications of the narration concerning the make-up of the two voluntary units of morning prayer after the obligatory prayer.
Background and Manuscript
Al-Mu'allimi composed the treatise in response to a request from some of his peers. The author's original manuscript consists of two folios (ff. 8–9) preserved within a collective volume (no. 4693) in the Library of the Holy Mosque in Makkah. It has been published as the fifth epistle within the sixteenth volume of the collected works of the author (Athar al-Mu'allimi).
Content and Method
The work analyzes the hadith of the Companion Qays ibn Amr, recorded in collections such as Musnad Ahmad, Sunan Abi Dawud, Sunan al-Tirmidhi, and Sunan Ibn Majah, in which the Prophet ﷺ saw a man praying two rak'ahs after the morning prayer and inquired about them; upon hearing that they were the missed Sunnah prayer of Fajr, he remained silent. Al-Mu'allimi surveys the chains and textual variants of the report, focusing on two key divergences in its phrasing:
- The initial inquiry of the Prophet ﷺ: Variants record different phrases, including أصلاة الصبح مرتين؟ ("Is the morning prayer performed twice?"), صلاة الصبح ركعتان ("The morning prayer is two rak'ahs"), مهلاً يا قيس! أصلاتان معاً؟ ("Gently, O Qays! Are two prayers combined?"), and ما هاتان الركعتان؟ ("What are these two rak'ahs?"). Al-Mu'allimi prefers the narration transmitted by Sufyan ibn Uyaynah ( ما هاتان الركعتان؟ ) due to his eminence, his early hearing of the report, and its agreement with the mursal narrations of Yahya and Abd Rabbih, the brothers of the primary narrator Sa'd ibn Sa'id.
- The conclusion of the report: The vast majority of narrators report that the Prophet ﷺ remained silent ( فسكت النبي ﷺ ), indicating tacit approval and permissibility, while al-Darawardi uniquely transmitted the wording فقال: فلا إذاً ("He said: Then no [prohibition] then").
Al-Mu'allimi critiques the Hanafi scholar Anwar Shah al-Kashmiri, who interpreted the phrase فلا إذاً in Fayd al-Bari as meaning "Then there is no permissibility" ( فلا جواز إذن ). Al-Mu'allimi demonstrates through comparative prophetic usages in the Sahihayn that the negated term implies the absence of prohibition rather than the absence of validity.
Al-Mu'allimi concludes the treatise by stating that his purpose was specifically to scrutinize this particular hadith rather than to settle the entire legal debate surrounding prayers during prohibited times, while noting that the textual indication of the report toward permissibility is apparent. He also refutes al-Kashmiri's deduction from the narration of al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah concerning the Prophet's ﷺ prayer behind Abd al-Rahman ibn Awf.
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