400 — ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah narrated to us, ʿAbīdah ibn Ḥumayd narrated to us, from Abū Mālik al-Ashjaʿī Saʿd ibn Ṭāriq, from Kathīr ibn Mudrik, from al-Aswad, that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd said: The extent of the prayer of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in summer was three feet to five feet, and in winter five feet to seven feet.(1)

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= It is found in "Musnad Aḥmad" (14506) and "Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān" (2276).

We say: It appears that he did not have any extra portion of his garment upon which he could prostrate while still preserving the covering of his nakedness, for it has come in al-Bukhārī (385) on the authority of Anas ibn Mālik, who said: We used to pray with the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and one of us would place the edge of his garment, due to the severity of the heat, at the place of prostration.

And in another narration (542): When we prayed behind the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, at the noon prayers, we would prostrate on our garments out of protection from the heat.

(1) Its chain of transmission is sound.

It was also narrated by al-Nasāʾī in "al-Kubrā" (1504) via the path of ʿAbīdah ibn Ḥumayd, with this chain.

Al-Sindī said in his "Ḥāshiyah ʿalā Sunan al-Nasāʾī" commenting on the statement of Ibn Masʿūd: "The extent of the prayer of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace," meaning: the extent of delaying the prayer from the sun's decline until what appears of the shadow amounts to three feet, that is, the shadow of each person becomes three of his feet, so each person's foot is considered in relation to his shadow. The intent is that the total of the original shadow and the additional shadow reaches this amount, not that the additional shadow alone becomes this amount, with the original shadow being counted apart from that. For this may be due to the increase of the original shadow, as in winter days, and may be due to the increase of the additional shadow because of cooling, as in summer days.

And al-Khaṭṭābī said in "Maʿālim al-Sunan" 1/128: This matter varies across regions and lands, and is not uniform in all cities and towns, because the cause of the length and shortness of the shadow is the increase and decrease of the sun's height in the sky. Whenever it is higher and closer to being aligned with the heads in its course, the shadow is shorter, and whenever it is lower and farther from alignment with the heads, the shadow is longer. For this reason, you always see winter shadows longer than summer shadows in every place. The prayer of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was in Mecca and Medina, and both are in the second clime, and they mention that the shadow there at the beginning of summer, in the month of Ādhār, is three feet and a little more. And it is likely that his prayer, when the heat was severe, =