My brother Fadl bin Abbas, who was with him when he entered the House, told me that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ did not perform prayer inside the Kaabah. Rather, when he entered it, he fell in prostration between the two pillars, then sat down and supplicated.
حدثني أخي الفضل بن عباس وكان معه حين دخل البيت: أن رسول الله ﷺ لم يصل في الكعبة، ولكنه لما دخلها وقع ساجدا بين العمودين، ثم جلس يدعو.
Ahmad narrated it (1801), Tabarani (18/270), and Ibn Khuzayma graded it sahih (3007), all of them through the hadith of Muhammad bin Ishaq, who said, "Abdullah bin Abu Najeeh narrated to me, from Ata bin Abu Rabah, and from Mujahid bin Jabr, from Abdullah bin Abbas," and he related the hadith. Its isnad is hasan because of Muhammad bin Ishaq, since he was known to conceal defects in his chains of narration, though in this case he stated his source explicitly.The hadith of Bilal can be reconciled with the hadith of Usama bin Zayd and Fadl bin Abbas by saying that the additional detail is to be accepted, just as Bukhari said in the Book of Zakat, after citing the hadith of Ibn Umar (1483), "As for what the sky has watered...". He said, "The explicit report takes precedence over the ambiguous one when it is transmitted by reliable narrators, just as Fadl bin Abbas reported that the Prophet ﷺ did not pray inside the Kaaba, while Bilal said that he did pray. So Bukhari adopted the statement of Bilal and set aside the statement of Fadl." This is the end of what Bukhari said.It has been said, "Perhaps Usama bin Zayd was occupied with supplication and did not see the Prophet ﷺ pray." And it has been said, "Perhaps he went out for a need and then returned, by which time the Prophet ﷺ had already prayed, so he did not see him." And it has been said, "After the door of the House was closed, darkness would fall inside, so Usama did not see him, while Bilal, being closer to him, did see him."The Hafiz mentioned some of these explanations in Fath al-Bari (3/468).As for those who held that the prayer was performed in the Kaaba on the day of the conquest of Makkah, while its absence was reported on the occasion of the Farewell Pilgrimage, as Ibn Hibban stated (7/483), this view is questionable, because of what Azraqi related in Akhbar Makkah (1/273) from his grandfather, who said, "I heard Sufyan say, 'I heard more than one scholar mention that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ only entered the Kaaba once, in the year of the conquest, then he performed the Hajj and did not enter it again.'"