Even if the report were sound, it contains no explicit wording that the basmalah was uttered aloud, nor does it expressly attribute that practice to the Prophet ﷺ. Abū Hurayrah’s closing statement—“I am the one among you whose prayer most closely resembles the prayer of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ”—does not oblige us to regard every act he performed in that prayer as prophetically sanctioned, as Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah elaborates in al-Fatāwā 1 / 81; consult it.

The fact of the matter is that no unequivocally authentic ḥadīth supports reciting the basmalah aloud, whereas a sound report from Anas affirms that the Prophet ﷺ would recite it quietly. I have traced this narration through ten separate chains, cited in the documentation of my book The Prophet’s Prayer Described; most of them are rigorously authentic. Some versions explicitly state that he ﷺ “would not raise his voice with it,” and their chain is sound according to Muslim’s criterion. This is the position of the majority of jurists and most ḥadīth scholars, and it is the incontestable truth. Whoever wishes to investigate the matter further should refer to Shaykh al-Islām’s Fatāwā, which will satisfy any fair-minded researcher.

Under the heading “One who cannot perform the required recitation,” the author writes: “The ḥadīth of Rafāʿah ibn Rāfiʿ: the Prophet ﷺ taught a man how to pray and said, ‘If you have memorised any Qur’an, recite it; otherwise praise Allah, proclaim His greatness, declare His oneness, then bow.’ It was narrated by Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī, who graded it ḥasan (good).”

I say: This is an excerpt from the ḥadīth of “the man who prayed badly,” transmitted by Rafāʿah—may Allah be pleased with him—and by the authorities named by the author. Al-Tirmidhī’s grading of “good” falls short of what the chain deserves, for it is sound beyond dispute, as I pointed out in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd 807.

Moreover, it serves as a strong corroboration of the ḥadīth of Ibn Abī Awfā, who said:
“A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said, ‘I am unable to learn anything of the Qur’an; teach me something that will suffice me.’ He replied, ‘Say: Subḥān Allāh (Glory be to Allah), al-ḥamdu li-llāh (praise be to Allah), lā ilāha illā Allāh (there is no deity but Allah), Allāhu akbar (Allah is the Greatest), and lā ḥawla wa lā quwwata illā bi-llāh (there is no might nor power except with Allah).’”