the Messenger, peace and blessings be upon him, then it is rejected. And even if it is authentically established but its indication is not sound, then deriving evidence from it is rejected.

Furthermore, even assuming it to be authentic, it does not indicate that the follower is excused from recitation in both the silent and audible prayers. Rather, it only indicates that he is excused from recitation in the audible prayer when he hears it from his imam, for the statement, “The imam’s recitation counts as his recitation,” indicates that the follower listened to it and thus regarded it as sufficient in place of his own recitation. But the hadith is weak, as mentioned above, and it is not permissible for us to base a ruling in the law of Allah upon weak evidence. For this is to attribute to Allah what we know is not authentically established from Allah; indeed, it is worse than speaking about Allah without knowledge. When we establish a ruling on the basis of a weak hadith, this is worse than speaking about Allah without knowledge, because we have affirmed something that we know is not sound.

The preponderant view on this issue is that the follower must recite al-Fatihah, due to the general wording of the Prophet’s statement, peace and blessings be upon him: “There is no prayer for one who does not recite the Opening of the Book.” (1)

The word “one” is a relative pronoun, and relative pronouns convey generality; that is, any person who does not recite al-Fatihah has no valid prayer, whether he is a follower, an imam, or praying alone. This negation cannot be interpreted as a negation of perfection, because the basic meaning is the negation of validity and fulfilment, not the negation of perfection, unless there is evidence to support such an interpretation—and there is no evidence here to depart from the basic meaning.

If someone were to say: This hadith is general, while we have a general hadith and a Quranic verse—