‘A’isha said that between the time when he finished the evening prayer and the dawn prayer the Prophet used to pray eleven rak'as, uttering the salutation at the end of every two and observing the witr,* with a single one, and during that he would make a prostration about as long as one of you would take to recite fifty verses before raising his head. When the mu’adhdhin finished making the call for the dawn prayer and he saw the dawn clearly, he stood up and prayed two short rak'as, then lay down on his right side till the mu’adhdhin came to him for the iqama, whereupon he would go out.
‘Ata’ said that when Ibn ‘Umar prayed the Friday noon prayer in Mecca he would go forward and pray two rak'as, then go forward and pray four; but when he was in Medina he prayed the Friday noon prayer, then returned to his house and prayed two rak'as, not praying them in the mosque. Someone mentioned this to him and he replied that God’s Messenger used to do it.
Abu Dawud transmitted it. In Tirmidhi’s version he said, “I saw Ibn ‘Umar pray two rak'as after the Friday noon prayer, then he prayed four after that.”
‘Amr b. ‘Ata’ said that Nafi‘ b. Jubair sent him to as-Sa'ib to ask him about something Mu'awiya had seen him do in prayer. He said, “Yes, I prayed the Friday noon prayer along with him in the enclosure,* and when the imam uttered the salutation I stood up in my place and prayed. When he went in he sent me a message saying, ‘Never again do what you have done. When you pray the Friday noon prayer you must not join another prayer to it till you have engaged in conversation or gone out, for God’s Messenger gave us that precise command, not to join on a prayer till we had engaged in conversation or gone out’.”
* The enclosure (maqsura) was a private part of the mosque reserved for the Caliph. Mu'awiya has been accused of being an innovator because he introduced this feature.
