to your companion, “Keep silent,” while the imam is delivering the sermon, you have fallen into idle talk. Their rationale is that enjoining what is right is superior to the two-rakʿah greeting of the mosque; therefore, if the former is forbidden at that moment, the latter is even more so.

This is the Ḥanafī line of argument in marshaling the cited ḥadīth, as set out by al-Sindī. Yet he—may Allah have mercy on him—did not accept it; instead he refuted it, saying:

“There is room for discussion here. First, it is reasoning by indication or analogy in opposition to an explicit text, and such reasoning is not admissible. Second, continuing a prayer that one began before the sermon is permitted, whereas persisting in enjoining right that one began beforehand is not. Just as prayer cannot be likened to enjoining right with respect to continuation, it cannot be so likened with respect to initiation. Allah, Most High, knows best.”

I say: we do not concede that enjoining right outranks the greeting of the mosque; rather, the opposite is true, as the text plainly shows. At that particular juncture, the greeting prayer takes precedence over enjoining right—hence it was commanded while the latter was not. This, as already demonstrated, is among the proofs that the greeting is obligatory. Reflect upon it.

Because the evidence in this matter is so manifest, I abstain from examining the remaining arguments and opinions alluded to earlier or refuting them. Whoever wishes to study them at length may refer to Fath al-Bārī and Nayl al-Awṭār. I merely note here a marfūʿ report which—if authentic—would support the Ḥanafīs. Al-Ṭabarānī, in al-Kabīr, transmits from Ibn ʿUmar, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ:

“When any one of you enters the mosque while the imam is preaching from the pulpit, he is neither to pray nor to speak until the imam has finished.”

Al-Haythamī comments (2/184):