The sound hadith resolves the issue so decisively that no room remains for any claim of contradiction or abrogation. Its general purport restricts the unqualified wording of those other reports, so we say: “Nothing breaks the prayer when a screen (sutrah) stands in front of the worshipper; but if no screen is present, the prayer is broken by the things named in the hadith.”

Indeed, this very reconciliation is explicitly stated in a report from Abū Dharr, traced back to the Prophet, which reads: “Nothing breaks the prayer when there is before him something equal to the rear end of a saddle; yet the prayer is broken by a woman ….” Al-Ṭaḥāwī recorded it with an authentic chain.

Thus the narrations concur, and the correct ruling is that the prayer is nullified by the specified things when no barrier is set up. This is the doctrine of the Imam of the Sunnah, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241 AH), and the preferred view of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, who concludes his discussion of the matter with these words:

“Those who opposed the hadiths concerning the breaking of the prayer did so only by declaring some of them weak—a judgment issued by one unfamiliar with the hadith, as its transmitters themselves made clear—or by countering them with weak narrations from the Prophet ﷺ that say, ‘Nothing breaks the prayer,’ or with reports from the Companions, although the Companions differed on this question, or with a feeble opinion which, even if correct, could never stand against this proof.”

See his al-Qawāʿid al-Nūrāniyyah, pp. 9–12, and Zād al-Maʿād, 1/111.