Among the Sunnahs of ablution:

1. Pronouncing the basmalah (saying “Bismillah”) at the very start. The reports about saying the basmalah before ablution are individually weak, yet taken together they reinforce one another and show that the practice has a sound basis.

I say: The strongest of these reports is the hadith of Abu Hurayrah, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: “There is no prayer for the one who has no ablution, and there is no ablution for the one who does not mention the name of Allah over it.” It is transmitted through three independent chains and many additional corroborations to which I referred in Sahih Sunan Abi Dawud, no. 90. Since the author himself admits that the hadith is strong, he is bound to affirm the ruling its plain wording conveys—namely, that pronouncing the basmalah is obligatory. Nothing warrants departing from this apparent meaning and reducing it to mere recommendation. The obligation therefore stands. This is the position of the Zahiri school, of Ishaq, of one of the two reports from Ahmad, and it was preferred by Siddiq Hasan Khan and al-Shawkani; it is, Allah willing, the correct view. See al-Sayl al-Jarrar 1/76–77.

2. He then says—citing the hadith of ʿAmir ibn Rabiʿah: “I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ so many times using the siwak (tooth-stick) while he was fasting that I could not count them.” Narrated by Ahmad, Abu Dawud, and al-Tirmidhi.

I say: Quoting this hadith without comment gives the impression that it is authentic, yet it is not, for the chain revolves around ʿAsim ibn ʿAbd Allah, who is weak, as al-Hafiz states in al-Taqrib. Al-Bukhari likewise hinted at its weakness in his Sahih when he wrote, “It is related from ʿAmir ibn Rabiʿah ….” Al-Hafiz’s rulings in al-Talkhis are inconsistent: in one place he grades the report good, in another he declares it weak. The latter assessment accords with his firm judgement in the first book that the narrator is unreliable, and that—Allah willing—is the truth. We would therefore have preferred that the author argue for the recommendation of using the siwak while fasting, both early and late in the day, on the basis of the original presumption of non-liability (al-baraʾah al-asliyya); and, if he must cite the hadith, that he make its weakness clear.