and what the ruling requires. If we have knowledge of that, we and they stand on equal ground.
(The Command to Lie Down)
Sound reports establish that the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, used to lie down after the two units of the dawn Sunnah. A sound report from Abū Hurayrah also establishes the command for everyone who prays these two units to lie down.
I hold that someone who leaves off lying down sins and that the obligation remains attached to him. He must lie down, even if he makes it up whenever he does so, although the particle fa indicates immediate succession.
One of the later independent jurists and hadith masters among the Literalists said that the dawn prayer is invalid for someone who has prayed the two units of the dawn Sunnah and failed to lie down. In his view, if the person has left the two units unprayed, his dawn prayer is valid.
Continuation on the Inward Application of This Section
Lying down comes after the two units of the dawn Sunnah and before the dawn prayer. Disapproval attaches to the accountable person in this time, so after dawn appears he prays only the two units of the dawn Sunnah and then the dawn prayer. The two units have thus come to resemble the obligatory prayer. Lying down intervenes between them and the dawn prayer to distinguish the sunna from the obligation and to have him rise to the obligation from lying down. He thereby knows that he has separated himself from the two units. Were he to rise for the dawn prayer straight after them, it would be confused
Notes
Translator’s note TN2066-1: The particle fa in the command indicates that lying down follows upon the two units. The complete wording of that command is not quoted here. The author maintains that the obligation survives even if it was not done immediately.
