Is it obligatory that the sending of blessings upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) be accompanied by the sending of peace?

The questioner : My teacher says that some people hold that the sending of blessings upon the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) must be accompanied by the sending of peace, based on the saying of the Exalted: How accurate is this?

The Shaykh : This is correct with regard to the prayer; this statement is correct with regard to the prayer. Because when this verse was revealed, they said: meaning their saying in the tashahhud, "Peace be upon you, O Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)," and so on, So, if one sits in the tashahhud, it is very obvious that he must recite the tashahhud and send blessings upon the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) with the Ibrahimi prayers. However, outside of the tashahhud, it is not necessary to combine the two matters, because we know that the prayer [sending of blessings] we were commanded to perform in the prayer was not commanded of us outside of the prayer. For example, if I mention to you, as happened just now, a few hadiths about the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), there is no scholar, or indeed no rational person, who would say that merely because you hear me say, "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," you should sit down and say: and so on, the well-known Ibrahimi prayer in the prayer. But it suffices for you to come with the shortest and most concise formula of sending blessings upon the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Therefore, what is fitting in the prayer, or what is obligatory in the prayer, is not obligatory outside of the prayer. From this, many scholars, let alone others, err when they transfer rulings that are tied to the prayer to matters that are parts of the prayer but are not the prayer itself. They impose on these parts what was imposed on the prayer. For example, purity: they condition purity for the prostration of recitation. Some of them, not all, condition for this prostration the takbir and the tashahhud. This ruling is incorrect because the prostration of recitation is indeed a part of the prayer, but it is not the prayer itself, so what is conditioned in the prayer is not conditioned in it. Likewise, we say that the Ibrahimi prayer is specific to the prayer, just like the tashahhud, so with these two preserved formulas from him (peace and blessings be upon him), they are specific to the obligatory or voluntary prayer. As for outside of the prayer, if you say "May Allah send blessings upon him," or "May Allah send blessings upon him," or you say "Peace be upon him," you have done what is obligatory upon you and saved yourself from deserving the description of the miser that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used for whoever did not send blessings upon him when he was mentioned. And so, we did not find in all the books of the Muslim scholars, old and new, that the author, whether it was al-Bukhari and Muslim or others who are the most knowledgeable of people about the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), when they mentioned the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in an occasion, and these occasions are numerous, they stopped there and combined the tashahhud with the Ibrahimi prayer, or even said "May Allah send blessings and peace upon him." They did not even commit to this brief phrase. And among the things we observe in old books, as opposed to new ones, is that we find in old manuscripts, "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said," without "and peace," and this means a practical application by them of a permissible command in the Shari'ah. So, this peace is not a necessary matter, but if the Muslim does it with a concise phrase as is customary today, "May Allah send blessings and peace upon him and his family," he has done what is befitting.