Salatul Tasbih · 2 min read
Is Salatul Tasbih sunnah, nafl, or bid'ah?
It is not a sunnah mu'akkadah, and nobody claims it is.
Beyond that the answer depends entirely on what a scholar concluded about the hadith behind it. Three positions exist, and each follows from a judgement about the evidence rather than from a separate argument about the prayer.
The three positions
Each one is held by named scholars and each is internally consistent.
- Mustahab — recommended. Held in the Hanafi school, and by Shafi'i jurists who accepted the hadith.
- Permissible nafl — allowed as voluntary prayer, without the status of a recommended sunnah.
- Not established — held by those who judged the hadith too weak to support a fixed act of worship. Some in this group describe practising it as an innovation.
Why the answer follows from the hadith
A recommended act needs evidence to recommend it.
If the report is sound enough, the prayer is recommended. If it is not, there is nothing establishing it, and a fixed form with a fixed count has no basis.
So the categorisation question and the authenticity question are the same question in different words.
Who held what on the hadith is on is Salatul Tasbih authentic.
Is it bid'ah?
Some scholars have said so, and they are not saying it lightly.
Their argument is that a specific prayer with a fixed number of rak'ahs and a fixed count of three hundred is precisely the kind of act that needs firm evidence, and that this evidence is not firm.
Others answer that the report reaches an acceptable grade through its multiple routes, which removes the objection.
Calling the practice bid'ah is a real scholarly position. So is calling it mustahab. Neither camp is being careless.
What this site holds
The Hanafi position: mustahab.
Stated as a school's position, not as a fact about the hadith that the other side has failed to notice.
If you follow a school that reached the other conclusion, this page has named the scholars who did.
Does it count as nafl if I pray it?
Yes. Voluntary prayer is voluntary prayer.
Even on the view that this specific form is not established, praying four rak'ahs of nafl and making dhikr in them is not objectionable in itself.
The disagreement is about attributing the fixed form to the sunnah, not about whether extra prayer and extra dhikr are good.