2 – The implicit sense of the report is that if their number falls short of forty, the Friday prayer is not held; instead they perform ẓuhr.
3 – The hadith is weak, for it contains ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn Rajih, whose narrations are either fabricated or falsely attributed. Al-Bayhaqi said, “This hadith cannot be used as evidence, and even if it were authentic it would still prove nothing.” Shaykh Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb remarked, “It is worthless and inadmissible as proof.” Because of this weakness the scholars disagreed over the number with which the Friday prayer is established.
- Difference of the scholars:
The jurists have differed on the minimum number that makes Jumuʿah both valid and obligatory.
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Imāms al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad held that it is not to be performed with fewer than forty men. Their evidence is what al-Bayhaqi ⦗3/180⦘ transmitted from Ibn Masʿūd: “The Messenger led the Friday prayer in Madinah when they were forty men,” and it has not been established that he ever prayed with fewer than forty, as well as the present hadith—yet neither narration furnishes a decisive proof.
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The Mālikīs consider the required number to be twelve men, basing themselves on Muslim ⦗863⦘ from Jābir concerning the caravan that arrived, where the people dispersed to it until only twelve men remained with the Prophet. This incident, however, does not stipulate the number in question; it was a mere coincidence and cannot serve as a strong argument. Nevertheless, the hadith undermines the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī position, for they have no satisfactory reply to it.
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Abū Ḥanīfah and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan maintained that the minimum congregation for Jumuʿah is three men in addition to the imam, because three is the smallest true gathering and Friday entails the hardship of assembling.
A group—including the Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf, Shaykh al-Islām, and Ibn al-Qayyim—opted for the view that it is established by three: one imam and two listeners, and this