The second sub-issue is: At what point is a person deemed to have caught the imam with respect to the ruling of the prostration of forgetfulness—meaning the imam’s forgetfulness? The third is: When does a traveler who joins a resident imam, one who is praying the prayer in full, become obliged to complete the prayer in full if he has caught only part of it?
As for the first question (catching the Friday prayer):
• One group held that if a man catches a single rakʿah of Friday, he has caught the Friday prayer and then makes up a second rakʿah. This is the position of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī. If he catches less than a rakʿah, he prays ẓuhr, four rakʿahs.
• Another group maintained instead that he must make up two rakʿahs, no matter how much of them he actually caught. This is the view of Abū Ḥanīfah.
The root of the disagreement is what some take to be a clash between the general wording of the Prophet ﷺ: “Whatever you catch, pray; and whatever you miss, complete,” and the implicit sense of his statement: “Whoever catches a rakʿah of the prayer has caught the prayer.” Whoever adheres to the general text—“and whatever you miss, complete”—requires him to make up two rakʿahs even if he caught less than two. Whoever interprets the ellipsis in “has caught the prayer” as “has caught the ruling of the prayer” says that the logical implication (dalīl al-khiṭāb) is that one who catches less than a rakʿah has not caught the ruling of the prayer.
That elided word is open to several possibilities: it might refer to the merit of the prayer, to the time of the prayer, or to its ruling. The figurative sense is not clearly more evident in one of these than in the others. If matters stand thus, the text is ambiguous and cannot on its own yield a ruling, whereas the other report, being explicit and general, deserves precedence. Even if we concede that the ellipsis is more apparent in one particular sense—say, “the ruling,” as some contend—this apparent sense cannot override an explicit general text except by way of dalīl al-khiṭāb, and a general expression is stronger than dalīl al-khiṭāb according to all scholars, all the more so when the latter rests on mere possibility and outward likelihood. As for those who claim that the Prophet’s words “has caught the prayer” simultaneously include all these suppressed meanings, their view is weak and unsupported by Arabic usage, unless one could show the existence of a specific technical or legal convention to that effect.
With regard to the follower’s obligation to accompany the imam in the prostration—
meaning the prostration of forgetfulness—some jurists made the criterion that he must have caught a rakʿah of the prayer with the imam, while others did not. Those who dispensed with this requirement relied on the general ḥadīth, “The imam was only appointed to be followed,” whereas those who imposed it relied on the implicit sense of “He has caught the prayer.” Hence they differed over