(peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), which he taught to his companions, and which they adopted. As for the hadith of Ibn Abbas, he is the sole narrator of it, and there is disagreement (3) regarding some of its wordings; for in the narration of Muslim, he said: 'And I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger,' like the narration of Ibn Mas'ud. Furthermore, the narration of Ibn Mas'ud is sounder in terms of its chain of transmission (isnad) and has more narrators, and a group of the companions agreed upon narrating it, thus it is more appropriate. Moreover, it contains an addition, and it contains the coordinating conjunction 'wa' (and), which is more eloquent in the speech of the Arabs, and it contains 'al-salam' with the definite article (al-), which denotes totality. Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Aswad narrated from his father, who said: Abdullah ibn Mas'ud told us that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught him the tashahhud in prayer, and he said: 'We used to memorize it from Abdullah just as we would memorize the letters of the Quran, the waw and the alif' (4). This indicates his precision, so it is more appropriate.

Section: It is permissible to perform the tashahhud using any version that has been authentically narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Ahmad explicitly stated this, saying: 'The tashahhud of Abdullah is more pleasing to me, yet if one performs it with another version, it is permissible.' This is because when the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught it to the companions in various ways, it indicated the permissibility of all of them, like the different qira'at (recitations) that the Mus'haf (Quranic codex) encompasses. The Qadi said: 'This indicates that if one omits a phrase that is omitted in some of the narrated tashahhud versions, one’s tashahhud is valid.' Based on this, it is permissible to say: 'The minimum that suffices is: The salutations are for Allah, peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of Allah, peace be upon us and upon the righteous servants of Allah. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah [and I bear witness that Muhammad] (5) is His servant [and His messenger, or that Muhammad] (6) [is the Messenger of Allah]' (7). Ahmad said in a narration by Abu Dawud: 'If one says: "And that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger," and does not mention "I bear witness," I hope that it suffices.' He said