What is the origin of the abbreviated form of the prayer upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) found in the books of hadith and common on the tongues of people?

The questioner : A questioner asks: What is the origin of the abbreviated form of the prayer upon the Prophet (may Allah exalt his rank and send blessings upon him and his family) found in the books of hadith and common on the tongues of people? It is their saying: "peace and blessings be upon him." Yet the Prophet (may Allah exalt his rank and send blessings upon him and his family) taught them how to pray upon him, both in prayer and outside of it. They said: "O Messenger of Allah, we have learned how to greet you; so how do we pray upon you?" He said: ?

The Shaykh : In my opinion, this is an important question, and the answer to it clarifies a reality that many people, including some of the specialists among them, have long overlooked. This is the reality we always and forever state: that a Muslim cannot be content with his call being limited to merely adhering to the Book and the Sunnah; rather, he must add to that "according to the methodology of the righteous Salaf." The Book and the Sunnah, and according to the methodology of the righteous Salaf.
The reason that compels us to state the necessity of adhering to this addition or this adjunct, "according to the methodology of the righteous Salaf," is a number of matters, some of which are transmitted and some rational. As for the transmitted, you know the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic): . Our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) did not say: in vain, but rather for a profound wisdom. Because if He had said: "And whoever opposes the Messenger after the clear proof has come to him, We will turn him to what he has turned to," and so on, there would have been room for every misguided person who deviates from the Book and the Sunnah in the correct sense in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) left the community to say: "This is what I understood from the verse and the hadith." But so that this understanding would not be chaos without a rule or a criterion, He said (the Exalted): , to make it clear to people that it is not sufficient, and indeed it is not permissible, for every Muslim to understand the Book and the Sunnah as it appears to him; rather, he must understand them as our righteous Salaf understood them. Therefore, the intended meaning here is: . The believers referred to here are our righteous Salaf, to whom the Messenger (peace be upon him) bore that testimony by which they were distinguished from those who came after them, in the authentic, indeed mass-transmitted hadith: . This is from the perspective of this noble verse.
Then the Sunnah comes, as is its constant and eternal habit, to explain and clarify the Qur'an. The Messenger (peace be upon him) said in the well-known hadith of the seventy-three sects, when he was asked about his saying (peace be upon him): . Who are they? He said: . And similarly, the hadith of al-'Abbas ibn Sari'ah, which begins: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gave us a sermon that made our hearts tremble and our eyes shed tears," to the end of the hadith. He said (peace be upon him): to the end of the hadith. This hadith and that one make it clear to us that we cannot do without the understanding of what our righteous Salaf were upon, especially the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), because they were closer to him (peace and blessings be upon him) in understanding, knowledge, observation, sight, application, and everything of this kind. Therefore, just as we receive the words of the Shari'ah, the Qur'an and the hadith, from these Salaf, we must also receive the meanings of these texts from the Book and the Sunnah. It is not enough for one of us today, after fourteen centuries, to say: "By Allah, this is my understanding!" Especially in rulings, and more specifically in matters of creed that were practiced, whether that practice was a heart-based act of faith or a physical act of the limbs. There is no doubt that they understood these matters correctly. So whoever comes after them with an opinion that contradicts what they were upon in creed or in religious rulings, there is no doubt that he is contrary to the path of the believers, and thus he falls under the general scope of His saying (the Exalted) mentioned earlier: . Once this important principle is known, the beginnings of the answer to this question become clear to us.
We know with certainty that the Companions who transmitted his (peace be upon him) hadiths to us, then the Tabi'un, then their followers, and they are, as we mentioned, the generations testified to as being the best, that when they narrated a hadith from the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) and began it by saying: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," or one of them said: "The Messenger of Allah used to do such and such or say such and such," we know with certainty that none of them would say: "The Messenger of Allah said: O Allah, send blessings upon him, O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad," or "May Allah send blessings upon Muhammad and the family of Muhammad as You sent blessings upon..." to the end of the Ibrahimi prayer. We are certain that they did not say it this way. Therefore, we do not say that the place of application of the Qur'anic text mentioned in the question, and that its generality requires the prayer to be in the form that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) taught his Companions, is the case. There is a prior discussion that "a general text that has not been practiced upon is not permissible for us to act upon a part of its parts that has not been practiced upon." Rather, what we know was applied, we apply, and what we know was left from its parts, we leave. And this is following: that we do what they did and leave what they left.
So here a question may arise: What do we say? We say what is in the books of hadith. Those of the early Imams of hadith who were concerned with precision in narrating hadiths, even down to a single letter, we do not imagine, ever, one of two things. We do not imagine that a Companion would say: "The Messenger of Allah said: , The Messenger of Allah used to do such and such," meaning: he did not pray upon him. This is the first matter that we do not imagine. The second matter we do not imagine is that he would say: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), pardon, habit takes over, the Messenger of Allah would stop here and say: O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad." This, too, we do not imagine happened. Why? And this is connected to the recent discussion from yesterday. Because if it had happened, it would have been transmitted to us, because the motivations for transmitting this important matter are present. Whenever a Companion mentioned the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) in a hadith of his, whether from his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying or his doing, he would stop and pray upon him as they were taught. If this had happened, even once, the motivations for transmitting it would have been present. How so, when most of the hadiths are in the hundreds, indeed in the thousands, and it was not found in a single hadith that one of them prayed upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) with this complete, full prayer?
From here, I conclude to say that this general Qur'anic text is not intended in its generality, but rather this is specific to the prayer. This is supported by a narration reported by al-Hakim, and perhaps by Imam Ahmad in "al-Musnad," that when this verse was revealed, they said: "O Messenger of Allah, we have known this greeting to you" (this is in the authentic collections, but the continuation is the point of interest), "we have known this greeting to you; so how do we pray upon you when we sit in our prayer?" He said: . So this prayer's place is in the prayer, and not outside the prayer. And with this, the answer to the question ends.

The questioner : May Allah reward you.

The Shaykh : And you.