There is something about the verse of the salawat that is easy to miss precisely because we hear it so often. In the Qur’an, when Allah SWT commands the believers to do something, the command usually arrives directly: O you who believe, be mindful of Allah; O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you. The command descends to the servant, and it is the servant who performs it.

The verse of the salawat does not take that form.

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ وَمَلَـٰٓئِكَتَهُۥ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِيِّۚ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيۡهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسۡلِيمًا

“Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet. O you who believe, send blessings upon him and greet him with a worthy greeting.”

Note the order. Allah SWT does not open with the command. He first states what He Himself does, then what the angels do, and only then are the believers told to do the same. We are not being asked to begin something; we are being asked to join something already under way.

This construction is not unique in the Qur’an. There is one other verse that moves in exactly the same order.

شَهِدَ ٱللَّهُ أَنَّهُۥ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ وَٱلۡمَلَـٰٓئِكَةُ وَأُوْلُواْ ٱلۡعِلۡمِ قَآئِمَۢا بِٱلۡقِسۡطِۚ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلۡعَزِيزُ ٱلۡحَكِيمُ

“Allah bears witness that there is no god but He, and so do the angels and those possessed of knowledge ...”

The first to bear witness is Allah, then the angels, then those who have knowledge. The same pattern: He first, then the creation following. Compare this with the obligatory prayer — a weighty obligation, yet no verse states that Allah performs it first. The salawat stands somewhere else.

The form of the verb

One grammatical detail deserves attention. The word used is yusallûna — a verb in the mudhari’ form, which in Arabic denotes an action ongoing and continuing rather than one completed at a single point in time.

Ayatullah Makarim Shirazi notes this in his commentary: the use of the mudhari’ here indicates continuity — that Allah SWT and His angels send blessings upon the Prophet SAAW perpetually, and that the act is unbroken.

If that is true of the party who performs it first, it is hard to see why the party commanded to follow should confine itself to particular times.

One word, three meanings

A fair question arises: what does “sending blessings” actually mean when the one doing it is Allah? It plainly cannot mean the same thing it means when we do it.

Linguistically, salâh means supplication and exaltation. The meaning stays one, but it takes a different shape according to who is speaking — from above downward it is a giving, from below upward it is a request.

What is striking is that this division is formulated in almost identical terms by two traditions that are seldom brought together.

In Sahih al-Bukhari, before giving the hadith on this verse, al-Bukhari himself records the statement of Abu al-‘Aliyah: Allah’s salat is His praise of the Prophet SAAW before the angels, while the salat of the angels is supplication. From Sufyan ath-Thawri a similar formula is related: the Lord’s salat is mercy, and the angels’ salat is their seeking forgiveness. Ibn Hajar al-‘Asqalani sets this out at greater length in Fath al-Bari.

Meanwhile, in the sources of the Ahlul Bayt, when the Imam a.s. was asked what is meant by the salat of Allah, of the angels, and of the believers, the answer divides the same thing three ways: Allah’s salat is mercy upon him, the angels’ salat is a raising of his rank, and the believers’ salat is their supplication for him. Shaykh at-Tusi sets it out along the same lines in at-Tibyan: Allah’s salat upon the Prophet SAAW is honour, exaltation and the raising of his degree, while the angels’ salat is their asking Allah to treat him so.

Two traditions, one formulation. This is not a contested point.

That Allah’s salat upon a servant means a mercy that brings him out is stated by the Qur’an itself.

هُوَ ٱلَّذِي يُصَلِّي عَلَيۡكُمۡ وَمَلَـٰٓئِكَتُهُۥ لِيُخۡرِجَكُم مِّنَ ٱلظُّلُمَٰتِ إِلَى ٱلنُّورِۚ وَكَانَ بِٱلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ رَحِيمٗا

“It is He who sends blessings upon you, and His angels (ask forgiveness for you), that He may bring you out of the darknesses into the light. And He is Merciful to the believers.”

Hold on to this verse; we will come back to it at the end.

The Companions’ question

This section is the most firmly established part of the whole discussion, and the part least often noticed.

When the verse of the salawat came down, the Companions did not immediately know how to act on it. They asked. And their question is recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, related from Ka’b ibn ‘Ujrah through Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Layla, in two separate places.

In the book on the stories of the prophets, the question reads: how is the salat upon you, O people of the house — for Allah has already taught us how to give the salam?

In the book of commentary, at Surah al-Ahzab, it is shorter: as for the salam upon you, we already know it; so how is the salat?

Two things are worth noting about the question itself, before we look at the answer.

First, the Companions distinguished two things: the salam, which they already knew, and the salat, which they did not. The two are not one matter.

Second, in the first narration they did not ask “how do we send blessings upon you” in the singular, but upon you, O people of the house. It was the Companions who were asking, and it was they who named the Ahlul Bayt in the question.

As for the answer of the Messenger of Allah SAAW, in both narrations — and in the parallel narrations in Sahih Muslim and the books of Sunan — it contains one and the same element: O Allah, send blessings upon Muhammad and upon the family of Muhammad, as You sent blessings upon Ibrahim and the family of Ibrahim; indeed You are Praiseworthy, Glorious.

So the wording that includes the family of the Prophet SAAW is not a later addition, nor the mark of one school. It is the wording the Messenger of Allah SAAW taught himself when he was asked, and it is recorded in the collection that ranks highest in authority among the Sunnis.

Ibn Taymiyyah states this plainly too: the family of the Messenger of Allah SAAW have rights that must be observed, Allah assigned them a share of the khums and the fai’, and He enjoined that blessings be sent upon them together with blessings upon His Messenger — and he then quotes the wording as it stands.

The meaning of “wa sallimû taslimâ”

The verse of the salawat does not stop at the command to send blessings. It continues: wa sallimû taslimâ.

The most common understanding, and the one held by the majority of commentators, is that this means greeting the Prophet SAAW with the salam. This is why we say shallallâhu ‘alayhi wa âlihi wa sallam.

But there is another reading, and it rests on a real difficulty: if sallimû means only to give the salam, why do the Companions in the hadith above state that they already knew how to give the salam, and that what they were asking about was the salat?

From Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq a.s. it is related that when Abu Basir asked him about this, he answered that the taslim in the verse is submission to him SAAW in every matter. This reading is not without support from the Qur’an itself, since the same word is used in a context where it cannot possibly mean a spoken greeting.

فَلَا وَرَبِّكَ لَا يُؤۡمِنُونَ حَتَّىٰ يُحَكِّمُوكَ فِيمَا شَجَرَ بَيۡنَهُمۡ ثُمَّ لَا يَجِدُواْ فِيٓ أَنفُسِهِمۡ حَرَجٗا مِّمَّا قَضَيۡتَ وَيُسَلِّمُواْ تَسۡلِيمٗا

“But no, by your Lord, they will not believe until they make you the judge in what they dispute among themselves, and then find no resistance within themselves against what you decide, and submit in full submission.”

Here yusallimû taslimâ plainly means to yield and accept, not to say a greeting. This reading does not cancel the first; it adds a layer on top of it. What is asked for is not only a tongue that mentions him, but a disposition that submits to what he brought.

What did not survive checking

The material this article was built from carries many citations, and honesty requires saying that they are not all equally strong. Three notes are needed.

The hadith of the “truncated salawat” (salat batra’). The report that the Messenger of Allah SAAW forbade a truncated salawat — naming Muhammad and then stopping without naming his family — is often quoted from as-Sawa’iq al-Muhriqah of Ibn Hajar al-Haytami. But this report is not found in the principal hadith collections, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami himself introduces it with the passive “it is said,” and no connected chain is known for it. What matters is this: the conclusion does not depend on this report. The wording that includes the Prophet’s family already stands on Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim. Arguing a settled point from a weak report only weakens the reader’s impression of the point itself.

The report of the Prophet’s light as the first creation. The narration of Jabir stating that the first thing Allah created was the light of the Prophet SAAW is quoted from Kashf al-Khafa of al-‘Ajluni. It should be known that this book was compiled precisely to gather sayings in wide circulation on people’s tongues, including baseless ones — and al-‘Ajluni himself notes that no chain is known for this report. A number of hadith scholars have judged it to have no basis. It should not be leaned on.

References to Bihar al-Anwar. Some reports in that material rest on Bihar al-Anwar alone. The book is an immensely valuable collection, but it was compiled as a repository — al-Majlisi gathered without grading each report, and he did not conceal this. A report found only there should be read as material, not as a verdict.

The material also contains a number of arguments aimed at individuals — pointing out the inconsistency of a hadith scholar, or relaying a historical accusation against a particular figure from a source hostile to him. Those parts are not carried here. They add nothing to the question at hand, and the subject is strong enough to stand without them.

Whom the salawat is actually for

One question remains, and it may be the most important: if the Messenger of Allah SAAW has already reached a station that cannot be added to, why are we commanded to pray for him?

The answer is implied in the verse we set aside. Allah states that He sends blessings upon the believers so that He may bring them out of the darknesses into the light. Which is to say that the salawat coming from Allah is an instrument of bringing out — something that moves its recipient from one state to another.

The Prophet SAAW does not need to be moved from anywhere. We do.

So when someone sends blessings, what increases is not the station of the Prophet SAAW — that station is not increased by the words of one standing far beneath it. What happens is that the reciter draws nearer. The reports that a single salawat is returned many times over are not speaking of a benefit to the Prophet SAAW; they are speaking of what comes back to the one who said it. As Imam Ali a.s. put it, deeds are returned to those who do them.

And perhaps here lies the answer to the oddity we began with. Allah SWT performs this act before commanding it not because the Prophet SAAW needs it, but because we need something to follow. The command tells us that there is a current already flowing from before we existed — a current of mercy directed at one family — and that we are invited to step into it.

Whoever does not step in harms no one but himself.