Both Ibn Ḥazm and Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr agree in reporting the consensus that the prayer of anyone who deliberately fails to face the Kaʿbah is null and void. We addressed that point immediately before the ḥadīth now under discussion.

As for a person who cannot see the Kaʿbah and does not know its exact location, it is sufficient for him to face the direction in which it lies, for Allah, Exalted is He, says, “Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity” (2:286), and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “What lies between the east and the west is a qiblah.”

This ḥadīth is related by Abū Hurayrah and by ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with them both).

With respect to the first chain, al-Tirmidhī and Ibn Mājah recorded it through Abū Maʿshar Najīḥ, from Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah, in marfūʿ form.

Abū Maʿshar is weak. Al-Tirmidhī observed, “Some scholars have spoken against Abū Maʿshar because of his poor memory.”

I say: The report is nevertheless strengthened by a second chain that corroborates it. Al-Tirmidhī said: “Ḥasan ibn Abī Bakr al-Marwazī narrated to us; al-Muʿallā ibn al-Manṣūr narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar al-Makhramī narrated to us, from ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad al-Akhnas, from Saʿīd al-Maqburī, from Abū Hurayrah,” and he declared it “a good, sound (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ) ḥadīth.”

Al-Bukhārī said, “It is stronger and more authentic than the report of Abū Maʿshar.”

I add: All the transmitters in this chain are trustworthy, except for al-Tirmidhī’s shaykh, Ḥasan ibn Abī Bakr; so it is recorded in