addition is the fact that it has a corroborating report from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī recorded by Muslim (404) and others.

Key terms in the ḥadīth
• innamā: a particle of restriction. It confines the ruling to what is mentioned—in this case, the obligation of following the imam—and negates it with respect to everything else.
• juʿila al-imām: a passive verbal construction. The verb jaʿala (to make/appoint) carries two senses: (1) creational, which is decreed by Allah (qadarī), as in: “We have placed therein means of livelihood for you and for those whom you do not provide” (al-Ḥijr 15:20); and (2) legal, which is a command or prohibition (sharʿī), as in: “Allah does not wish to place upon you any hardship; rather, He wishes to purify you” (al-Māʾidah 5:6). The creational sense never fails to occur, whereas the legal sense may or may not be fulfilled.
• li-yuʾtamma bih: meaning “so that he may be imitated in prayer and followed.”
• fa-idhā kabbara: the particle idhā is a future-oriented adverb of time that implicitly carries a conditional sense; it governs the clause that follows.
• fa-kabbirū: the prefixed faʾ links the result to the condition and conveys immediate succession; the congregants’ actions must follow the imam’s without delay.
• wa-lā tukabbirū ḥattā yukabbir: this clause reinforces the preceding command by expressing the implied meaning explicitly.
• Rabbana wa-laka al-ḥamd: in some narrations the conjunction wa is omitted, while in others it is retained, reading “Our Lord, and to You belongs all praise.” Those who retain it say it adds an extra nuance; those who omit it hold that, by default, nothing additional should be presumed. Al-Nawawī stated that both versions are sound, with neither one preferred over the other.
• fa-ṣallū quʿūdan: meaning “pray seated,” an adverbial phrase describing the state.
• ajmaʿīn: an emphatic term that reinforces the plural pronoun in the verb fa-ṣallū.