Kharija b. Hudhafa told of God’s Messenger coming out to them and saying, “God has given you an extra prayer which is better for you than the high-bred camels,* the witr, which God has appointed for you between the evening prayer and the daybreak.”
* Literally “the red ones of the camels.” These were considered to be the best quality.
Narrated ‘Abd al-‘Aziz b. Juraij said he asked ‘A’isha what Qur’an passages God’s Messenger used when observing the witr and she replied:
In the first rak'a he recited, “Glorify the name of your most high Lord,”1 in the second, “Say, O infidels,”2 and in the third, “Say, He is God, One,”3 and al-Mu‘awwidhatan.4
Tirmidhi and Abu Dawud transmitted it. Nasa’i transmitted it from ‘Abd ar-Rahman b. Abza, Ahmad from Ubayy b. Ka‘b, and Darimi from Ibn ‘Abbas, but the last two did not mention al-Mu'awwidhatan.
