happiness except by means of this guidance; whoever is deprived of it is either among those who have incurred wrath or among the astray.

Ibn al-Qayyim added: “Because asking for guidance to the straight path is the loftiest of requests and attaining it the noblest of gifts, Allah taught His servants the manner of petitioning for it. He instructed them to precede their plea with praise, commendation, and glorification of Him, and then to acknowledge their servitude and His oneness. These two avenues of approach make it rare indeed that such a supplication is turned back unanswered.”

Scholarly disagreement:
The four Imams and their followers are unanimous that reciting al-Fātiḥah is obligatory for the imam and for the individual praying alone, and that the prayer is invalid without it. The only exception is the Ḥanafīs with regard to its sufficiency for the prayer, and their view has already been mentioned.

They diverged, however, over whether the follower (maʾmūm) must recite it:
• Imām al-Shāfiʿī and the ḥadith scholars hold that it is obligatory for the follower in both silent and audible prayers, provided he is able. An exception is made when he joins the imam while the latter is already bowing: he pronounces the opening takbīr, bows with the imam, and is deemed to have caught the rakʿah; in that case al-Fātiḥah is waived for him. The same applies if he joins the imam but cannot finish al-Fātiḥah before the imam bows—he bows, and the sūrah is waived in that circumstance as well.
Their evidence is the ḥadith of Abū Bakrah in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, together with the rationale that this man did not catch the standing posture, which is the place for reciting al-Fātiḥah, so the remembrance is dropped because its locus is absent, just as washing the hands in wuḍūʾ is dropped if the hands have been amputated.

• The majority—who forbid the follower to recite behind the imam—argue from the report in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (404) in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “When he recites, listen attentively.” They also cite what is recorded in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad (14233) and elsewhere with a sound, uninterrupted chain whose transmitters are all trustworthy: “Whoever has an imam, the imam’s recitation is his recitation.”