The Albaani Site

See here for part seven.

Questioner: How do you pray Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ?

Al-Albaani: As has been reported in the paths of the ḥadīth about it, Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ is like the other prayers, it differs only in that in each rakʿah there are seventy-five tasbīḥs to be said, so the total would be three hundred.

So in the first rakʿah, before the bowing [rukūʿ], he says the tasbīḥ fifteen times, [so he says]:

سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ،  وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ، وَلاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللَّهُ،  وَاللَّهُ أَكْبَرُ
Subḥānallāh, walḥamdulillāh, wa lā ilāha illallāh, wallāhu-Akbar

And then he bows, when he has finished [saying what he says in] the regular bowing he [then] says this tasbīḥ ten times [while in rukūʿ], so that makes it twenty-five.

Then he raises his head from the rukūʿ [i.e., stands up] and says: Samiʿallāhu liman-ḥamidah, Rabbanā walakal-ḥamd, and then says it ten times.

And likewise with every pillar, ten tasbīḥs—when he prostrates, after he has said the [normal] tasbīḥs for the sajdah he then says ten of the Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ ones … when he rests between the two sajdahs, ten tasbīḥs, when he raises his head from the second sajdah [ten tasbīḥs], when he sits to rest after the second sajdah [before standing up for the next rakʿah], ten tasbīḥs, in total these come to seventy-five.

So he does that in every rakʿah which makes the total three hundred tasbīḥs.

This is how it is performed and he doesn’t add anything else to the sunnah prayers except these tasbīḥs and in the order I just mentioned now.

Riḥlatun-Nūr, 48b.

[So you stand to pray:

—after having read Fātiḥah and some of the Qurʾān you say the tasbīḥ fifteen times.
—then when in rukūʿ after having said the normal praise said in it, you say this tasbīḥ ten times.
—then after rising from rukūʿ ten times.
—in sajdah, after having said the normal praise said in it, ten times.
—between the two sajdahs ten times.
—in the second sajdah ten times.
—after the second sajdah while sitting before getting up for the next rakʿah, ten times.

And then you stand up for the next rakʿah. That makes seventy-five, repeated over four rakʿahs, three-hundred tasbīḥs. Also see here.]

End of the series on Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ.

See here for part six.

Questioner: In relation to Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ … we know that the Prophet ﷺ taught [his uncle] ʿAbbās this prayer but that he ﷺ didn’t pray it [himself], and it has been said that it has not been reported that the Companions prayed it in congregation … how do we pray it in congregation and call the people to that?

Al-Albaani: I didn’t know that you pray it in jamāʿah—you pray it in jamāʿah?

Questioner: Yes, we have prayed it in congregation on more than one occasion Shaikh.

Al-Albaani: That’s on you … Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ is legislated to be prayed like the Sunnahs, on its own.

Questioner: Everyone [praying it] individually?

Al-Albaani: … or at home.

Questioner: You mean you didn’t pray it with us?

Al-Albaani: Astaghfirullah.

Questioner: A personal question, have you ever prayed it?

Al-Albaani: Yes.

Questioner: You did. So praying it in congregation is an innovation?

Al-Albaani: Yes.

Questioner: Wallaahi, we reported from you that you prayed it with us, O Shaikh.

Al-Albaani: May Allaah forgive you.

Al-Hudā wan-Nūr, 252.

See here for part five.

Questioner: There is another issue, some of the youth were saying that Shaikh al-Albaani sometimes will declare ḥadīths to be authentic but not act on them [himself], like the ḥadīth about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ … that even though al-Albaani said the ḥadīth was authentic he didn’t do it, [or that] maybe he didn’t do it, and that is only because it is possible that he feels something about it. What do you think about that?

Al-Albaani: How do they know that he doesn’t act on it?

Questioner: Their brains told them.

Al-Albaani: No. If you had said their desires and not their brains you would have been correct—because the one who has a brain does not guess blindly.

The ḥadīth says that the Prophet ﷺ said to his uncle ʿAbbās about praying it even if only once in his lifetime, so how do they know that I haven’t prayed it in my lifetime when I am now sixty-seven years old? This is from the misguidance of the youth of today and their guessing at the unknown.

Al-Hudā wan-Nūr, 307.

See here for part four.

Questioner: [Is the ḥadīth] about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ authentic or not?

Al-Albaani: The scholars have differed greatly over the ḥadīth about it, it has been said that it is authentic and that it is fabricated, and in between these two [opinions] are different levels. What I hold to be the stronger opinion, following on from some of the Ḥuffāẓ well-known for their precision in their checking of the Prophet’s ḥadīths ﷺ, like al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Nāṣir ad-Dimashqī who was a contemporary of al-Ḥāfiẓ aḏ-Ḏhahabī ad-Dimashqī, [so al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Nāṣir ad-Dimashqī] has a book in which he gathered the different paths of the ḥadīths about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ. And it will become clear to whoever studies it and studies the paths of this prayer or the paths of the ḥadīth of Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ that the ḥadīth is authentic based upon all of its chains of narration. As for the individual chains of narration then there isn’t a ḥadīth among them about which it can be said that it is authentic [ṣaḥīḥ], indeed [there isn’t a ḥadīth among them about which it can be said that it is] ḥasan li-ḏhātihī.

The authenticity came about through all of the chains of narration taken into account together. And this is the reason why the scholars have differed so greatly over it.

So you have Ibn al-Jawzī and with him Ibn Taymiyyah and others who held that this ḥadīth was fabricated, not meaning by that that the chain of narration itself was fabricated, because some of its isnāds are in Sunan Abū Dāwūd and other collections and they don’t include anyone who has been accused as such, nor do they have anyone who was a [confirmed] fabricating liar, in fact the isnād does not even have anyone who was [even simply] accused of lying or fabricating, what they do have are those whose memorisation has been criticised.

But Ibn al-Jawzī and Ibn Taymiyyah looked at the wording of the ḥadīth and found that it was strange [gharīb] in its wording and also strange in the excellence given to this prayer even if only performed once a year, so they said that a ṣalāh like this has no resemblance to the well-known prayers mentioned in the authentic ḥadīths, and so for this reason they inclined towards it being fabricated.

And those who didn’t go as far as to say that it was fabricated [yet who still didn’t agree with it] looked at the apparent paths of narration and the isnāds—that is if they had collected and come across all of them, [again that is] if they had, because I am doubtful that they did that—because whoever did [actually] do that did not [then go on to] say that it was fabricated or weak. [These others] took a look at a few of its individual chains of narration and then said that the ḥadīth was weak.

As for those who reported it and said that it was authentic, they took into consideration all of its paths of narration and saw that the ḥadīth principle which the ḥadīth scholars laid down in the Science of Ḥadīth—i.e., that a weak ḥadīth is strengthened if it is reported through many paths of narration—they [went and] looked at this numerousness and found a not insignificant amount of isnāds that were [of a level] sound enough to strengthen the ḥadīth based on all such paths. So they held that the ḥadīth was strong, with some saying it was ḥasan and others that it was ṣaḥīḥ.

So therefore the difference between those [scholars] who call the ḥadīth ḥasan and those who say it is ṣaḥīḥ is not a fundamental difference since both of them are of the opinion that the ḥadīth is established, and following on from that that acting on it is legislated.

And this ruling is supported by the fact that ʿAbdullah ibn al-Mubārak may Allaah be pleased with him used to pray it. ʿAbdullah ibn al-Mubārak was one of the Imāms of the Muslims and one of the Shaikhs of the Imām of the Sunnah Imām Aḥmad, may Allaah have mercy on him. So if he didn’t have the opinion that the ḥadīth was established he wouldn’t have worshipped Allaah with this prayer which has that peculiarity in its form and manner. A peculiarity which led Ibn al-Jawzī and Ibn Taymiyyah to say that it was fabricated, but their ruling [that it was fabricated], as we mentioned earlier, was not about the isnāds of this ḥadīth, [they were not saying] that they all consist of fabricating liars, no.

So all of what I have mentioned reassures me in concluding that the ḥadīth is established from the Prophet ﷺ and that based upon that a Muslim should do it once every day, and if he can’t then every week, and if he can’t then once a month, and if he can’t then once a year, and if he can’t then at the very least, once in his lifetime.

This is my opinion about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ.

And it crossed my mind now that I should add something further to clarify what has preceded, so I say: it is true that there is no equivalent to the peculiarity in the manner in which this prayer is performed, but after the ḥadīth has been found to be established based upon what I mentioned earlier, the ḥadīth should not be called defective based upon this peculiarity. Because we know that there is a prayer, authentically established by agreement of the scholars of ḥadīth even though it also differs from the regular prayers: I am referring to the eclipse prayer.

So there was a solar eclipse in the time of the Prophet ﷺ and it so happened to occur on the day when Ibrāhīm, the Prophet’s son ﷺ, passed away. One of the customs of the Age of Ignorance [Jāhiliyyah] was that they would say that an eclipse would occur because a great person had died. So when the solar eclipsed coincided with the death of Ibrāhīm ibn an-Nabiyy ﷺ they said that the eclipse was because he had passed away.

So the Prophet ﷺ gave a sermon among them and said that, ‘O People! Verily the sun and the moon are two of Allaah’s Signs. They do not eclipse due to the death of anyone or his birth, so when you see it then pray and give charity and supplicate,’ then he ﷺ prayed two rakʿahs bowing twice in each rakʿah—and here is the point: in each rakʿah he ﷺ bowed two times.

So this manner [of prayer] opposed all of the regular, known prayers, whether obligatory or optional, because all of them are distinct in having only one bowing and two prostrations … in one rakʿah there is one bowing and two prostrations. As for this [eclipse] prayer it differed from all of the other prayers, because he ﷺ prayed two rakʿahs and in each one there were two rukūs and two sajdahs—so is it thereafter correct to say that this ḥadīth is irregular [shāḏ] or munkar because it goes against the general form of all the [other] prayers?

We say no, as long as the ḥadīth about it is ṣaḥīḥ then it is an act of worship that Allaah ordained for His Slaves during an eclipse, so we should pray as he ﷺ used to pray.

So based upon [all of] this I say: this shows even if by way of comparison that even if Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ differed from the other known, regular prayers, the eclipse prayer also differed in some aspects from those same prayers but that was not seen as a defect in it and it remains an ordained act of worship until the Day of Judgement.

Riḥlatun-Nūr, 48b.

See here for part three.

Questioner: How authentically established is Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ?

Al-Albaani: The scholars have differed greatly over the ḥadīths about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ, where you have some saying that it is fabricated and others saying it is authentic, and the reason for such severe differing goes back to two issues:

     The first is that this prayer has in fact not been reported with an authentic chain of narration with which it can established.
     The second is that it differs from all of the legislated prayers in its form, so it is irregular [shāḏ] in this aspect—those who said it was fabricated did so based upon these two realities: that it has no authentic chain through which it can be established and that the wording itself goes against [the form of] all of the established prayers in the the Sunnah.

But those who said it is authentic or at the very least ḥasan said that: [yes], it is true that this ṣalāh, or that this ḥadīth about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ, does not have an independent authentic chain of narration—but it does have many paths of narration, and one of the principles of the scholars of ḥadīth is that a weak [ḍāʿīf] ḥadīth is strengthened when it is reported through many paths of narration, and this ḥadīth does have many such paths, this is from one angle.

And from another angle it has been established that one of the Salaf, i.e., ʿAbdullah ibn al-Mubārak who was one of the major Shaikhs of Imām Aḥmad, used to hold that it should be prayed, and so he would pray it, and it is unlikely for an Imām such as him to act on a ḥadīth which he didn’t regard as being established.

So when we look at all this, that the ḥadīth about the Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ has been reported through chains which strengthen one another, in addition to the fact that ʿAbdullah ibn al-Mubārak used to pray it, one feels at ease about the ḥadīth being authentic and as a result the correctness of it being prayed is established.

And because of that the doubt which I mentioned earlier when quoting those who say it is not authentic is answered by saying that it is not a condition that a prayer has to be similar to others—because we know that there is a [another] prayer [which I will now mention] authentically established by agreement of the scholars which differs from all of the prayers at a time where the Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ is in agreement with them all in this aspect [which I will now clarify]: when I say a prayer which differs from all of the [other] prayers I am referring to the eclipse prayer. We all know that the eclipse prayer has two rukūʿs in each rakʿah and two sajdahs.

So [simply] by virtue of the fact that bowing is legislated twice in one rakʿah in the eclipse prayer it has opposed all of the well-known prayers in this regard, because there is no other prayer where bowing is legislated twice in one rakʿah, so is this … is the presence of such a point of difference in relation to the five prayers and others a cause for its authenticity to be disputed?

The answer is no.

Because Allaah can ordain whatever He wants for His servants in terms of prayers and how they are to be performed.

So the lesson to be taken is not that a form of worship has to have others that are like it but rather that it is established through [those] paths of narration through which all acts of worship are established.

So when we put aside this aspect of the critique, i.e., the criticism of the actual wording of the [ḥadīth] about Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ, and we turn back to the chains of narration [isnād] and we understand that they strengthen each other, in addition to the fact that one of the Salaf acted on it, [when we consider all of this] no valid argument criticising the manner in which this prayer is performed holds weight.

And thus the statements of those who say that the Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ is established rise up, which in turn establishes [the Sunnah of] praying it at the very least once in your lifetime as mentioned in the ḥadīth and at the most once every day.

This is my answer to this question.

Fatāwā Rābigh, 5.

See here for part two.

Questioner: Is the Ṣalātut-Tasbīḥ a mustaḥab prayer? And is it established that the Prophet ﷺ used to pray it all the time? Ibn al-Mubārak said it is encouraged to pray it and that a person should become used to praying it all the time and not neglect it, if that is the case then what is the proof for it?

Al-Albaani: It has not been reported that the Prophet ﷺ prayed it himself but many ḥadīths have been reported from him ﷺ encouraging one to do so, like the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās that the Prophet ﷺ said to his uncle ʿAbbās, “O ʿAbbās! Shall I not give you a gift? Shall I not give you something? Pray four rakʿahs …” then he ﷺ mentioned this well-known prayer, in every rakʿah there being seventy-five tasbīhs, saying, “If you can observe it once daily, do so; if not, then once weekly; if not, then once a month; if not, then once a year; if not, then once in your lifetime,” then he ﷺ mentioned something else which I don’t recall right now.

There is a long, ongoing dispute about this ḥadīth among the scholars of ḥadīth and what I hold to be the stronger opinion is that the ḥadīth is established through all of its paths of narration, and it is reported in Mishkāh al-Maṣābīh and I have checked it there and also in my book, ‘Ṣaḥīḥ al-Kalimaṭ-Ṭayyib,’ sorry I meant, ‘Ṣaḥīḥ at-Targhīb wat-Tarhīb.’

So in summary the ḥadīth is established based upon all of its paths of narration.

Al-Hudā wan-Nūr, 97.

See here for part four.