PRAYER SECTION · 130 – Keeping the Recitation Short in the Last Two Rak'ahs
Câbir ibn Samurah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated:
Ömer (may Allah be pleased with him) said to Sa’d: “The people have complained about you in everything, even in prayer.” Sa'd replied: "I prolong the first two rak'ahs and shorten the last two [rak'ahs], so that I do not shorten what I learned from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." Ömer then said to him: “That is precisely our assumption about you.”
— He (ﷺ) said: We observed the standing of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in the Dhuhr and Asr prayers. We estimated that he stood as much as thirty verses (Alif Lam Mim Tan-zil – meaning a recitation equivalent to Surat Al-Fatihah) during the first two rak’ahs of the Dhuhr prayer.
We estimated that his standing in the last two rak’ahs was half the amount of the first two rak’ahs, and his standing in the first two rak’ahs of the Asr prayer was as much as his standing in the last rak’ah of the Dhuhr prayer. We estimated that his standing in the last two rak’ahs of the Asr prayer was half the amount of his standing in the first and second rak’ahs.