Source: Fatāwā Amunpuri by Shaykh Ghulam Mustafa Zaheer Amunpuri
❖ Question:
Is it authentically proven that Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه prayed twenty rakʿāt of Tarāwīḥ?
✿ Answer:
There is no authentic evidence that Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه established twenty rakʿāt of Tarāwīḥ.
❀ Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī رحمه الله narrates that Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه instructed the Qurra’ (reciters) to lead the people in Tarāwīḥ during Ramaḍān, and he himself would lead them in Witr.
📘 (Al-Sunan al-Kubrā by al-Bayhaqī: 2/496)
However, this narration is weak due to the following reasons:
① Ḥammād bin Shuʿayb is weak.
Imām Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Imām Abū Zurʿah, Imām al-Nasā’ī, and Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī رحمهم الله have all declared him weak.
② ʿAṭā’ bin al-Sā’ib is mukhtaḍ (confused in old age).
Ḥammād bin Shuʿayb is not among those who heard from him before his confusion, so the narration is unreliable.
❀ Abū Ḥasnā’ reports that Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه appointed someone to lead twenty rakʿāt of Tarāwīḥ.
📘 (Muṣannaf Ibn Abī Shaybah: 2/393)
This chain is weak, because Abū Ḥasnā’ is majhūl (unknown).
❀ Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī رحمه الله writes:
“Lā yuʿraf”
(He is not known.)
📘 (Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl: 4/515)
Hence, Allah has not made us responsible to follow narrations that come through unknown narrators.
