Explanation of the Book: The Beginning of Revelation, Faith, and Knowledge-10b

The reciter: Muhammad ibn Kathir narrated to us, saying: Sufyan informed us from Ibn Abi Khalid from Qays ibn Abi Hazim from Abu Mas'ud al-Ansari, who said: .

The Shaykh : Yes, this is also the case; this contains anger, in that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was angry with the greatest anger the narrator, Abu Mas'ud al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), ever saw from him. And his saying: means its meaning is "I can barely bear it," meaning "I can barely manage to bear it because of its length."
And in it is that a person should seek to attract people, win people over, and endear himself to people in matters of religion, and not drive them away, for if they are driven away, they become the cause of their own turning away from the religion of Allah. And if he attracts them and endears himself to them, he becomes the cause of their love for the religion of Allah and their closeness to it. The "Niqqarin" used this hadith as evidence. Do you know the Niqqarin?
The student: Yes.

The Shaykh : Who
The students: Those who shorten the prayer.

The Shaykh : Those who shorten the prayer like the pecking of a crow. And they said that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: They said, "We have our own occupations; our shops are waiting for us; we want to open the shops, or our cars, or something similar." So you, O imam, restrict yourself to the minimum of the obligatory only. But they have no evidence for that, because we say that the intended meaning of shortening is what corresponds to the Sunnah. And Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) said: Is the lightest prayer the prayer of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) light or heavy? Light. So we say: the light one. The intended meaning of shortening is what agrees with the Sunnah. And as for what exceeds that, it is what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) forbade. Then, if one who loves to lengthen the prayer says: The Sunnah came with reciting Surat al-Tur in Maghrib, and Surat al-Dukhan and Surat al-Mursalat, and Surat al-A'raf. And this is an imam who recites Surat al-A'raf every night, and says, "The Messenger recited with it." What do we say? We say: You have contradicted the Sunnah. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) did not consistently recite it, certainly. Rather, it is authentic from him that he would recite Surat al-Mursalat, and recite Surat al-Dukhan, and recite Surat al-Tur. And most of what he recited was from the short surahs of the final part of the Qur'an. So if one uses this as evidence for lengthening the prayer for people, we say: You have no evidence in it. And if one uses this hadith of Ibn Mas'ud as evidence for shortening, we say: You have no evidence in it. For this reason, it is obligatory upon the imam and other than the imam to follow the Sunnah of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and do like it, so that he achieves complete following.