they immediately knew that he had lied about him. Once they had all concurred in acknowledging that fact and in circulating it among themselves—with no one objecting in the slightest—it became absolutely certain that they were unanimously transmitting it, just as they unanimously transmit the Qur’an and the body of law that has reached us by tawātur. Even though most of them were not formally assigned to teach the Qur’an, one would recite it to another, the other would learn from him, and none of them censured anyone else’s recitation.

In the same way, one person would teach another how to pray, saying, for example, that while resident Zuhr is four units, Maghrib three, and Fajr two, and the other would accept that from him. Because each of them endorsed the other’s report, their agreement on its transmission was evident—and that is the very essence of tawātur.

The same holds for everything they conveyed of his rulings, his signs, and his proofs. What makes this plain is that whenever one of them denied a report, he rebutted the transmitter and refused to concur with him—even when those disputants lived long after the time of the Companions, so how much more must this have been the case with the earliest Muslims? Consider, for instance, their debate over whether he recited the basmala aloud or silently, whether he performed the qunūt in the Fajr prayer consistently, only now and then during calamities, or once and then left it off. These are among the simplest of matters, for they all agree that the prayer of one who performs the qunūt is valid, just as the prayer of one who omits it is valid, and the prayer of one who recites aloud is valid just as that of one who recites quietly. Yet because they differed about what the Messenger actually did, they consequently differed about the legal ruling.

Thus it is clear that whatever was well known in the ummah as coming from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and which none of its scholars ever rejected, the community was unanimously agreed upon transmitting it, just as they were agreed upon transmitting the Qur’an and the outward duties of the sacred law.