Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
Muslim scholars say that saying “Sadaqa Allahu Al-Azeem” after reciting the Quran or when listening to it is not a blameworthy bidah (innovation in religion).
In this regard, Sheikh Atiyyah Saqr, the late head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, states:
Saying “Sadaqa Allahu Al-Azeem
“Saying “Sadaqa Allahu Al-Azeem” after reciting the Quran or when listening to it is not a blameworthy bidah due to the following reasons:
1- There is no evidence to forbid it.
2- It is a kind of dhikr (remembrance of Allah) which we should say it.
3- Some scholars have spoken of the virtue of uttering this expression and considered it one of the ethics of recitation. They even maintain that saying it in prayer does not break it.
4- The Quran has reference to these words:
{Say: Allah has spoken the truth (Sadaqa Allahu), therefore follow the religion of Ibrahim, the upright one; and he was not one of the polytheists.} (Aal Imran 3:95)
{And when the believers saw the allies, they said: This is what Allah and His Messenger promised us, and Allah and His Messenger spoke the truth (wa sadaqa Allahu wa rasulluh); and it only increased them in faith and submission.} (Al-Ahzab 33: 22)
Testifying to the Truth of all What Allah Says
Imam Al-Qurtubi prefaced his Tafsir by quoting Al-Hakim At-Tirmidhi as saying that among the ethics of reciting the Quran is for one to say, upon finishing the recitation, “True are the words of Almighty Allah” or a similar expression of the same meanings, testifying to the truth of all what Allah says (in the Quran), and bearing witness that Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) has conveyed this message to mankind. An example of this is to say, “Almighty Allah has spoken the truth and His honorable Messenger has conveyed it.” And then to confirm it by saying, “You have spoken the truth, O our Lord; You sent it (i.e., the message) to Your Messengers, and we testify that this is true. O Allah, make us of those who testify to the truth, and then the reciter is supposed to make duaa with whatever he (or she) wishes.
We read in Fiqh Al-Madhahib Al-Arbaah:
“If one says in prayer words like ‘Sadaqa Allahu Al-Azeem’ when the reciter finishes his reading, this does not break the prayer if one intends to just glorify Allah, the Almighty, or make mention of Him. The Shafi`is maintain that prayer is not invalidated at all by saying these words.”
Having said this, I wonder how some people dare consider ‘Sadaqa Allahu Al-Azeem’ after reciting the Quran as bid ah. We should be very careful when giving any Islamic rulings, as Allah says in the Quran: {And, for what your tongues describe, do not utter the lie, (saying) this is lawful and this is unlawful, in order to forge a lie against Allah; surely those who forge the lie against Allah shall not prosper.} (An-Nahl 16:116)
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.