AN ANALYSIS ON THE NARRATIONS ABOUT PROPHET’S STARTING PRAYER (SALAAH) WITH INVOCATION
Authors: ERDİM Sinan 
Published: June 2022

Invoking before starting prayer (salaah) with the Surah Fatiha is a practice that has been acted by the three sects except Maliki. Regarding to the narrations about the subject, even sahabis were in a small number they started prayer (salaah) like this way. Besides, it was narrated that the prominent names of tabiin also started recitation with invocation. Nevertheless, these invocations does not appear as ordinary and standardized invocations. In addition, some invoked before the Surah Fatiha and some after. Hence, as can be seen in our study, these different practices were represented in chapter headings by musannifs (authors), too. Relevant to this issue, when we look at the statements of the founders of Hanefi sect, we see that Imam Muhammed while explaining how to perform prayer (salaah) in el-Asl said that a person who prays (performs salaah) after Subhaneke prayer will invoke silently. Both Imam Muhammed and Imam Ebu Yusuf in their Asar’s attributed this to the statement of Ibrahim en-Nehai. Apart from this, we could not determine any evidence from them regarding why they started with an invocation like this. Imam Shafi'i put some evidence relevant to this issue. He put the verse “While reciting the Kur’an take refuge from the accursed Satan” and Ebu Hureyre’s and Ibn Omer’s practices as evidence. The narrations he related from these sahabis are weak. His disability presenting any narration about the Prophet’s starting recitation with invocation has an importance. According to the narrations from Ibn Hanbel related to Ebu Davud and Abdullah, the son of Ahmed b. Hanbel, he approved invoking. Nevertheless, they did not relate any narration from him regarding to the issue as evidence. The Kutub as-Sittah authors discussed this issue under the headings “What is said after takbir?” or “Prayers with which prayer (salaah) is started” etc. In his work, Buhari did not deduce from those chapters any narration regarding to the Prophet’s starting prayer (salaah) with invocation. On the contrary, he chose the same practice as the Maliki sect while narrating a hadith from Enes b. Malik that the Prophet, Ebu Bekr and Omer started recitation directly with the Surah Fatiha. Also in Muslim’s Sahih, we could not see any narration regarding to the Prophet’s invocation before the Surah Fatiha. The owners of Sunan collections narrated in relevant chapters of their works that the Prophet started recitation with invocation. Narrated in these collections, four sahabis related that the Prophet started prayer (salaah) with invocation. These are Ebu Said el-Hudri, Cubeyr Mut’im, Abdullah b. Mes’ud and Ebu Umame el-Bahilî. As can be seen in our study, there has been significant disagreement on the narrations related from these sahabis and from themselves. For instance, the time the Prophet said this was narrated differently. To some he said this when he woke for prayer (salaah) at night, to some after he started prayer (salaah) at night and to some while starting all prayers (salaahs). Besides, as seen in the narrations this invocation that was recited from the Prophet involves also some differences regarding to the common invocation. To some muhaddisths (hadith scholars), the origin of the narration that was related and shown as the best hadith, was originally mursal and made muttasil afterwards. Futhermore, another point for the same narration regarded to the topic is that deducing weak or hasan from different muhaddisths. Or another muhaddisth could count the narration as sahih regarding to the existence of different tariks which were related as weak by a muhaddisth.
All this information is the source of this practice, which is expressed as sunnah, that is, starting the qiraah with ınvocatıon in prayer. It also brings to mind the possibility of a source other than the Prophet. We are of the opinion that the possibility of this practice being started by the scholars or the Qur'a of the Companions and Tabi'in period should not be ignored. In the lights of all these information, our aim is to reach some conclusions about whether or not the Prophet invoked before the Surah Fatiha customarily while starting the prayer (salaah).