Secondly, the wording, “fa-hiya khadaj, hiya khadaj” (“it is defective, it is defective”) is the version recorded by Aḥmad 2 / 285. In another of his narrations it appears as, “fa-hiya khadaj, thumma hiya khadaj, thumma hiya khadaj” (“it is defective, then it is defective, then it is defective”). This wording matches Muslim’s narration 2 / 10: “fa-hiya khadaj,” and he repeated it three times.

The report was also transmitted by Abū Dāwūd, the remaining compilers of the Sunan, and others, and it is graded in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd 779.

He (the author) says: “The strongest proof for this view—namely, reciting the basmalah aloud—is the ḥadīth of Nuʿaym al-Mujammir. He said: ‘I prayed behind Abū Hurayrah. He recited bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm (In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Very-Merciful), then he recited Umm al-Qurʾān…’ to the end of the narration. At its conclusion Abū Hurayrah said, ‘By Him in whose hand is my soul, your prayer most resembles that of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.’ It was related by al-Nasaʾī, Ibn Khuzaymah, and Ibn Ḥibbān. Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar said in Fatḥ al-Bārī, ‘It is the soundest ḥadīth that has come regarding the audible basmalah.’”

I say: One must realize that this phrasing of the ḥāfiẓ does not, in the terminology of the ḥadīth critics, establish the ḥadīth as sound (ṣaḥīḥ). It merely confers a relative degree of soundness. Imām al-Nawawī, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

“It does not follow from such a statement that the ḥadīth is authentic, for they often say, ‘This is the soundest narration in the chapter,’ even though it may be weak; what they intend is that it is the strongest, or the least weak, among what has reached us on the subject.”

I add: Perhaps the ḥāfiẓ refrained from authenticating the report because some ḥadīth scholars declared the mention of the basmalah in it to be anomalous (shādh), contradicting all the reliable narrators who transmitted the report from Abū Hurayrah without it, as related by the Two Shaykhs and others through the route of Abū Salamah from Abū Hurayrah. Al-Zaylaʿī has discussed this at length in Naṣb al-Rāyah; see 1 / 335–337.

I now state: The report appears in Ibn Khuzaymah and others through the chain of Ibn Abī Hilāl—whose name is Saʿīd—yet he became confused in old age. On that basis I judged the ḥadīth weak in my annotation to Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Khuzaymah, no. 499, Islāmīc Office edition.