Someone asked, "Do you consider the witr prayer a sunnah?"He replied, "What do you mean by sunnah? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed the witr prayer, and the Muslims performed the witr prayer."The questioner said, "No, I mean is it a sunnah?"He responded, "Stop. Do you understand what I am saying? The Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed the witr prayer, and the Muslims performed the witr prayer."
حدثنا معاذ حدثنا ابن عون عن مسلم مولى لعبد القيس قال معاذ كان شعبة يقول القري قال
أرأيت الوتر أسنة هو قال ما سنة أوتر رسول الله ﷺ وأوتر المسلمون قال لا أسنة هو قال مه أوتعقل أوتر رسول الله ﷺ وأوتر المسلمون
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Its chain is sahih. Muslim, the freedman of Abdul-Qays, is Muslim bin Mikhraq Al-Qurri, who is the freedman of Banu Qurrah, a clan of Abdul-Qays, as Bukhari mentioned in Al-Kabir. His reliability was established earlier at 2141.This hadith was narrated by Malik in Muwatta 1:146 as a balagh, without a connected chain. Malik said, it reached him that a man asked Abdullah bin Umar about Witr, "Is it obligatory?" Abdullah bin Umar said, "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed Witr, and the Muslims performed Witr." The man kept repeating the question to him, and Abdullah bin Umar kept saying, "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ performed Witr, and the Muslims performed Witr."It appears to me that the early hadith scholars were unable to find a connected chain for this balagh, so Ibn Abdul-Barr mentioned it in Al-Taqassi under number 808. But here it is, connected in the Musnad, praise be to Allah. Hafiz Marwazi mentioned it in his book Al-Witr, printed together with Qiyam al-Layl, page 114, but he mentioned it as a suspended report from Muslim Al-Qurri, matching the narration here in the Musnad, without mentioning his chain of transmission to Muslim Al-Qurri.