Another example is the position of the people of Medina that if an imam leads the prayer, forgetting that he is in a state of major or minor ritual impurity, and then realizes this, he must repeat the prayer, but those who prayed behind him need not. This is what is reported from the Rightly Guided Caliphs, such as ‘Umar and ‘Uthmān. According to Abū Hanīfah, everyone must repeat the prayer. This has also been mentioned as a reported position of Ahmad, but his well-known, explicit position agrees with Mālik’s. This is also the position of al-Shāfi‘ī and others.

Further support for this is an incident involving Abū Yūsuf. The caliph appointed him to lead the Friday prayer in his place, and he led the people, then remembered that he had been in a state of ritual impurity. He repeated his prayer but did not instruct the people to repeat theirs. When questioned about this, he said: “Sometimes a matter becomes difficult for us, so we adopt the position of our brothers from Medina.” Yet there is considerable disagreement concerning the Friday prayer, since having an imam is a condition of it.

Mālik also applied this principle consistently to other errors on the imam’s part. If the imam prays according to his own independent legal judgment and omits something that a person praying behind him considers obligatory—for example, the imam does not consider it obligatory to recite “In the name of Allah…” or does not consider bleeding, loud laughter, or touching women to necessitate ablution, whereas the person praying behind him considers this obligatory—then Mālik’s position is that the follower’s prayer is valid. This is also one of the two positions reported from Ahmad and al-Shāfi‘ī. Their other position is that it is invalid, in agreement with Abū Hanīfah. As for the position of the people of Medina, there is no doubt about