and this is the explicit statement of Imām Aḥmad.

The scholars of the daʿwah declared, “This opinion is the stronger one, for the sound ḥadīth says: ‘When they are three, one of them leads the prayer’ (Muslim 672). The wording is unrestricted and therefore embraces every prayer, the Friday service included as well as the ordinary congregational prayers.”

Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh remarked, “Any view besides this requires evidence, and no evidence exists that removes it from the scope of that general text.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar stated, “Nothing authentic has been established regarding a specific number for Jumuʿah, and there are reports that indicate sufficiency with fewer than forty.”

ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq said, “No ḥadīth about the required number is soundly established.”

Al-Nawawī and others transmitted the consensus of the ummah that a certain number is stipulated, that the prayer is invalid if performed by a lone individual, and that a congregation is a condition for its validity.

The weightier ruling, then, is that the minimum is an imam and two listeners, the view preferred by Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah have mercy on him.