بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ

الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا إمَامَ الْمُجَاهِدِيْنَ
يَا رَسُوْلَ اللهِ
الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ
يَا نَاصِرَ اْلهُدَى
يَا خَيْرَ خَلْقِ اللهِ
الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ
يَا نَاصِرَ الْحَقِّ يَارَسُوْلَ اللهِ
الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ
يَا نَاصِرَ الْحَقِّ يَارَسُوْلَ اللهِ
الصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكَ
يَا مَنْ اَسْرَى بِكَ المُهَيْمِنُ لَيْلًا نِلْتَ مَا نِلْتَ وَالأَنَامُ نِيَامُ
وَتَقَدَّمْتَ لِلصَّلَاةِ فَصَلىَّ كُلُّ مَنْ فِى السَّمَاءِ وَاَنْتَ الْإِمَامُ
وَ اِلَى الْمُنْتَهَى رُفِعْتَ كَرِيْمًا
وَ سَمِعْتَ النِّدَاءَ عَلَيْكَ السَّلَامُ
يَا كَرِيْمَ الْأَخْلَاقِ
يَارَسُوْلَ اللهِ
صَلىَّ اللهُ عَلَيْكَ
وَ عَلىَ آلِكَ وَ اَصْحَابِكَ أجْمَعِيْنَ

Blessings and peace be upon you,
O leader of those who strive in God’s way,
O Messenger of God.

Blessings and peace be upon you,
O supporter of guidance,
O best of God’s creation.

Blessings and peace be upon you,
O defender of truth, O Messenger of God.
Blessings and peace be upon you,
O defender of truth, O Messenger of God.

Blessings and peace be upon you,
O you whom the All-Protecting One carried on the Night Journey.

You attained what you attained while all creation was asleep.

And you stepped forward to lead the prayer,
so everyone in the heavens prayed behind you,
and you were the imam.

And you were raised, in honor, to the Lote-Tree of the Utmost Limit.

And you heard the call:
“Peace be upon you.”

O noble in character,
O Messenger of God.

May God’s blessings be upon you,
and upon your family and all your companions..

What ChatGPT search says about the Origin of the “Tarhīm” (Salutation) Verses

The above verses – beginning with “الصَّلاةُ والسَّلامُ عَلَيْكَ يَا إمامَ المُجاهِدِين…” – are a form of salutation and praise (ṣalāt wa-salām) upon Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ. They are commonly known as “Tarhīm” (sometimes spelled Tarkhīm or referred to as shalawāt tarhīm) in Islamic tradition. This Tarhīm is essentially a poetic litany of blessings and peace upon the Prophet, often recited in melodic form (ibtiḥāl) by Qur’ān reciters or munshids. The lines extol the Prophet’s qualities (e.g. “Imām of the Mujāhidīn,” “Best of God’s creation,” “one who ascended in the Night Journey,” etc.) and conclude with prayers for him, his family and companions – it is not from the Qur’ān or ḥadīth, but rather a later devotional composition.

Such Tarhīm verses are most famously recited before the call to prayer (adhān) – especially before the dawn (Fajr) adhān in many countries – as a way to remind people of the coming prayer time while sending blessings on the Prophet. In places like Indonesia and Malaysia, for example, it’s common to hear recordings of these ṣalawāt Tarhīm over mosque loudspeakers in the early morning. Renowned reciters recorded these Tarhīm supplications in the 1950s–60s. Those recordings became popular and helped spread the Tarhīm tradition across the Muslim world.

Historical Origin of the Practice

The origin of this Tarhīm (i.e. adding formal prayers upon the Prophet around the time of the adhān) traces back to the medieval Islamic period – centuries after the Prophet ﷺ. Early on, the adhān itself did not include these extra phrases; the Prophet and his Companions limited the call to prayer to its known formula. However, during the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk eras, Muslim authorities introduced the practice of pronouncing prayers on the Prophet at adhān times as a pious addition. Historical sources in Arabic confirm this development:

Initial Introduction (12th Century): It is reported that Sulṭān Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) in his time encouraged a simple form of this practice. Before the Fajr adhān, people in Egypt and Syria would say: “as-salāmu ʿalā Rasūl Allāh ﷺ” (Peace be upon the Messenger of God.. This appears to have started as an informal devotional act to honor the Prophet before dawn. Some sources even cite the year 781 AH (≈1380 CE) during the reign of al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf as a time when sending ṣalāt on the Prophet was regarded as a “good innovation (bidʿa ḥasana)” and was added after the adhān of certain prayers (like on Monday and Friday nights).
Formalization in Mamluk Egypt (14th Century): The full-fledged Tarhīm after adhān was institutionalized in the Mamluk period. According to the historian Shaykh Aḥmad al-Bishbīshī (as quoted in Ḥāshiyat al-Dusūqī and other works), the first official addition of the ṣalāt wa-salām after every adhān on mosque minarets was enacted under Sulṭān al-Manṣūr Ḥājjī, a Mamluk ruler. This occurred in Shaʿbān 791 AH (≈ August 1389 CE), by order of the market inspector (muḥtasib) Najm al-Dīn al-Ṭunbud. At that time, the phrase “الصلاة والسلام عليك يا رسول الله” (“al-ṣalātu wa’l-salāmu ʿalayka yā Rasūlallāh” – Blessings and peace be upon you, O Messenger of God) was decreed to be proclaimed from the minaret after each adhān.
Gradual Expansion: This 791 AH decree built upon the earlier custom from Saladin’s era. There was an interim step: by 777 AH a Mamluk official named Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Burlusī (the muḥtasib at the time) had ordered that the original simple salutation be expanded to “الصلاة والسلام عليك يا رسول الله” (as noted above) before the Fajr adhān. Then in 791 AH, as mentioned, it was standardized after every adhān (with the exception of Maghrib, due to the short interval before the prayer). In other words, the practice evolved over a few decades in the 14th century: from a single-line salutation before Fajr, to a slightly longer phrase, and finally to a routine inclusion after all adhāns. Scholars of the time debated it; many considered it a praiseworthy addition to remind people to honor the Prophet, while a few viewed it as a religious innovation. Notably, a classical Maliki manual Bulghat al-Sālik records that “the ṣalāt ʿala’n-Nabī after adhān” was seen as a good innovation and notes its establishment in that period.
Composition of the Tarhīm Verses: The specific verses you’ve provided (“yā Imāma’l-mujāhidīn, yā Rasūlallāh… yā nāṣir al-hudā… yā man asrā bika’l-Muhaymin laylan…,” etc.) were likely composed subsequently as poetic embellishments to the basic formula. Over time, mosque callers and poets added honorific titles and rhyming lines to magnify the praise of the Prophet. The Tarhīm text you shared is one of the famous traditional formulas that emerged. It includes references to the Prophet’s Miʿrāj (Ascension – “You who were taken by the Almighty on a night journey… you led the prayer to which all in heaven bore witness… you were raised to the Lote-Tree of the Utmost Limit (al-muntahā)…”) and his noble character (“yā Karīma’l-akhlāq”) before concluding with prayers for him and his family.These embellishments do not come from any canonical text; rather, they were authored by devotees (the exact author is often not clear, as such litanies were part of oral tradition). By the time of the late Ottoman period and into the 20th century, such a set of lines had become standard in many Muslim communities when performing Tarhīm.

Spread and Contemporary Use

After being formally adopted in Mamluk-era Cairo, the practice of Tarhīm spread to other regions. It was eventually printed in prayer manuals and taught as a cultural devotional, especially in places like the Levant, North Africa, and later South Asia and Southeast Asia. In modern times, the Tarhīm gained even wider popularity through audio recordings. In the mid-20th century, Egyptian reciters like Sh. Maḥmūd Khalīl al-Ḥuṣarī recorded these ibtiḥālāt (supplicatory chants) for radio and mosque use. By the 1950s–60s, such recordings were distributed on cassettes, and mosques worldwide began using them, from the Middle East to Indonesialenteraterang.blogspot.com. Today, many Muslims recognize this Tarhīm as a familiar pre-adhān “song” of devotion. It’s commonly played before Fajr prayer (hence sometimes called “Tarhīm Subuh” in Southeast Asia, meaning Dawn Tarhīm), and it remains a much-loved tradition, even though it’s technically outside the obligatory adhān.

In summary, the origin of this Tarhīm lies in post-prophetic tradition: it began as a pious innovation in the 12th–14th centuries to beautify the call to prayer with extra praises for the Prophet. The specific lyrical form you heard from Shaykh al-Ḥuṣarī is a product of that historical development – an Arabic poetic homage to Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ that was later popularized via Egyptian religious culture. Arabic historical sources like Ḥāshiyat al-Dusūqī and others document that it was first instituted officially in 791 AH / 1389 CE under Mamluk rule building on a simpler salutation practice dating to Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s era (12th century). Thus, the “Imām al-mujāhidīn” Tarhīm is not from the Qur’ān or hadith, but from a devotional tradition that has been handed down and embellished by Muslims over the past 600–800 years.

Sources

Ibn ʿAllān al-Ṣiddīqī, al-Futūḥāt al-Rabbāniyya (vol. 2, p.113), quoted in A. b. Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s al-Durr al-Manḍūd: detailing how prayers on the Prophet were first added to the adhān in 791 AH by order of Sulṭān al-Manṣūr Ḥājjī, after a simpler “salām ʿala’l-Nabī” had been practiced before Fajr since Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn’s time.
Bulghat al-Sālik (Maliki fiqh manual, vol.1 p.86) and Ḥāshiyat al-Dusūqī (vol.1 p.193): affirming that sending ṣalāt on the Prophet in the adhān was regarded as a “good innovation” introduced in the late 8th century Hijri. They note an initial implementation in 781 AH (during the rule of al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf) for certain adhāns, and the general adoption after 791 AH, with the phrase “al-ṣalātu wa’l-salāmu ʿalayka yā Rasūlallāh” added after every adhān (except Maghrib) on the minarets.
Lentera Terang (Indonesian Islamic blog) – “Sholawat Tarkhim” article: provides the full Arabic text of the Tarhīm verses in question and explains their usage in Indonesia before adhān. It also cites scholarly consensus that this practice was a later introduction (dating it to Mamluk times as above) and mentions that Egyptian Qur’ān reciters’ recordings in the 1950s–60s greatly popularized it worldwide.