Is one obliged to send salutations on the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) when saying the shahada?

Question Summary

Is one obliged to send salutations on the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) when saying the shahada?

Question Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is not an obligation to send blessings and salutations on the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) when saying the testification of faith (shahada). [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

If you ask regarding the prayer, it is an emphasized sunna, in the Hanafi school, to send blessings and salutations on the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) after the Tashahhud supplication in the final sitting. As for the after the first sitting, one does not send salutations as this entails delaying the next integral. [Ibid.]

The Shafi’i School

In other schools, such as the Shafii school, it is indeed obligatory to send salutations on the Prophet (may Allah bless him and give him peace) after the tashahhud supplication in the last sitting of the prayer, such that the prayer is invalid if omitted. [Shatiri, al-Yaqut al-Nafis]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and some texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.