Is Salatul Tasbih authentic?

The short answer

The prayer rests on a group of narrations. The best known is the report of Ibn Abbas recorded by Abu Dawud, hadith 1297, in the Book of Voluntary Prayers, chapter Salat al-Tasbih.

In it the Prophet ﷺ teaches the prayer to his uncle al-Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib.

Its chain runs Musa ibn Abd al-Aziz, from al-Hakam ibn Aban, from Ikrimah, from Ibn Abbas. Much of the disagreement below is about that chain.

Scholars split into two camps. Some judged the hadith too weak to establish a recommended prayer. Others held that it arrives through enough separate routes to be acted on.

In the Hanafi school, which this site follows, Salatul Tasbih is mustahab — recommended, not obligatory, and not sunnah mu'akkadah.

The shape of the prayer

Four rak'ahs. Seventy-five repetitions of a single phrase in each one, spread across the postures.

Three hundred in the whole prayer.

The phrase is SubhanAllah, wal-hamdu lillah, wa la ilaha illallah, wallahu akbar.

Where exactly the first fifteen repetitions fall is itself disputed between the transmitted methods. That is a question about how to pray it, not about whether the report is sound, and it belongs on its own page.

The case that it is weak

These scholars did not accept the hadith as a basis for the prayer.

• Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal — asked about it he said ma yu'jibuni, "I do not like it," and when pressed, laysa fiha shay'un yasihh, "there is nothing authentic concerning it." Recorded by Ibn Qudamah in al-Mughni, in the section on Salatul Tasbih (1:438 in one pagination).
• Ibn Taymiyyah — noted that Salatul Tasbih is among the better known of these reports, but that none of the four imams adopted it as recommended, and that Ahmad weakened the hadith. Majmu' al-Fatawa 11:579.
• Ibn 'Uthaymin — salat al-tasbih la asla laha, "Salatul Tasbih has no basis," holding its hadiths weak and the prayer not established from the Prophet ﷺ. From a recorded fatwa; no printed pagination is given here because none was verified.
• Al-'Aqili — held that no proven hadith exists on Salatul Tasbih.
• Al-Nawawi — recorded that some Shafi'i jurists held it recommended, then noted that the view is open to question because the hadith is da'if.

Al-Tirmidhi is quoted on both sides

He is usually listed as an opponent. That is half of him.

At Jami' at-Tirmidhi 481, the narration of Anas from Umm Sulaym, he calls it hasan gharib, notes that several reports on Salatul Tasbih exist and that much of what is narrated is not strong — and then records that Ibn al-Mubarak and other scholars accepted the prayer and mentioned its virtue.

Anyone citing him for one side alone is quoting selectively.

A numbering note worth having: 481 is the Anas and Umm Sulaym narration. 482 is the Abu Rafi' narration, which carries the detailed four-rak'ah method. They are frequently confused.

The case that it is strong enough

Nobody in this camp claims a single chain is sound. The argument is about accumulation.

In hadith criticism, a report weak through one chain can be raised to an acceptable grade when it arrives through several independent chains whose weaknesses are not of the disqualifying kind.

The reasoning is that independent narrators are unlikely to produce the same report by coincidence.

That is exactly the argument Ibn Abidin makes in the Hanafi school.

• Ibn Abidin — wa hadithuha hasan li-kathrati turuqihi, wa wahima man za'ama wad'ahu: "its hadith is hasan because of the multiplicity of its routes, and whoever claimed it fabricated was mistaken." Radd al-Muhtar 2:27.
• Al-Hakim — hadha isnadun sahihun la ghubara 'alayh, "this chain is authentic, with no dust on it." Al-Mustadrak, around 1:464–465 in one edition. Al-Dhahabi is commonly reported as agreeing with him.
• Al-Tirmidhi — recorded that Ibn al-Mubarak and other scholars performed the prayer and mentioned its virtue.
• Some Shafi'i jurists held it recommended, and the Hanafi school treats it as mustahab.

Two scholars who changed their assessment

This is the part almost every page on this subject leaves out, and it explains why sources contradict each other.

Al-Albani graded the Abu Dawud narration sahih in Sahih Sunan Abi Dawud, at 1152–1153 in a commonly cited edition. He later retracted that, treating the hadith as shadh and munkar in Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Da'ifah, no. 5123.

So citing him for either verdict alone is inaccurate. He held both, at different times, and the later position is the one he settled on.

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani likewise did not hold one fixed view. In al-Talkhis al-Habir he wrote that all its routes are weak, and that the Ibn Abbas narration approaches the standard of hasan but is shadh. In his later treatment in Nataij al-Afkar he graded it hasan.

If you have seen this hadith called sahih on one site and munkar on another, both may be quoting the same scholar honestly — just from different points in his life.

Why both sides can be sincere

It is worth being clear about what the disagreement is not.

Nobody is arguing that praising Allah three hundred times is objectionable. The phrase itself is beyond dispute.

The disagreement is narrower. It is about whether this particular report is strong enough to establish a prayer with a fixed number of rak'ahs, a fixed count and a fixed form.

Scholars who required stronger evidence for a fixed act of worship reached one answer. Scholars who accepted cumulative strengthening reached another.

Both were applying a rule consistently. They differed on which rule governs here.

Anyone who tells you the question is obvious has not read the other side.

The position of this site

This site follows the Hanafi school, and the Hanafi position is that Salatul Tasbih is mustahab.

That is stated as the position of a school, not as a settled fact about the hadith.

If you follow a school that judged the report too weak to act on, that position has serious scholars behind it and this page has named them.

What this site will not do is present the prayer as though nobody had questioned it, or present the objection as though nobody had answered it.

What this page still does not carry

Two things, and saying so is more useful than filling them in.

The full Arabic text of the hadith is not reproduced on this page. The chain, the chapter and the number are given above, and the wording belongs with the method rather than the grading question.

Ibn 'Uthaymin's position is given without a volume or page, because it comes from a recorded fatwa and no printed pagination was verified. Inventing one would be worse than leaving it out.

Everything else above names the scholar, the work, and where available the page. Where a scholar held more than one position, both are given with the order in which he held them.

That rule is on the methodology page.

Where to go next

For a dhikr with no such dispute attached, see dhikr after salah, where every step carries its source.

For the other page on this site that shows two positions rather than one, see is a digital tasbih halal.

For claims about dhikr that circulate without sources, see 15 tasbih claims that are wrong.