The Prophet ﷺ said, "Were it not that I would cause hardship to my community, I would have ordered them to delay the night prayer until a third or half of the night had passed."
حدثنا هناد حدثنا عبدة عن عبيد الله بن عمر عن سعيد المقبري
قال النبي ﷺ لولا أن أشق على أمتي لأمرتهم أن يؤخروا العشاء إلى ثلث الليل أو نصفه
[Its chain is sahih] Ibn Majah also related it in the Book of Prayer, Chapter on the Time of the Isha Prayer, no. 691, from the hadith of Ubaydullah bin Umar with the same wording. The hadith has other routes of transmission in Hakim, 1/146, and elsewhere.On this subject, there are also narrations from Jabir bin Samura [Muslim, no. 643], Jabir bin Abdullah [Ahmad, 5/3], Abu Barza [Bukhari, no. 541, and Muslim, no. 647], Ibn Abbas [Bukhari, no. 571, and Muslim, no. 642], Abu Saeed Khudri [Abu Dawud, no. 422], Zayd bin Khalid [mentioned previously, no. 23], and Ibn Umar [Bukhari, no. 570, and Muslim, no. 639].