The reply is:

There are several answers to this.

First, what people ordinarily have every reason and incentive to transmit, and are religiously obliged to transmit, is what actually occurs. As for what does not occur, there is nothing to report. Its nonoccurrence is transmitted only when people suppose that it occurred or need to know whether it did; it is then reported because of that need.

For this reason, scholars have said that if someone reported that a sixth prayer had been made obligatory, or that obligatory fasting extended beyond Ramadan, or that a pilgrimage other than pilgrimage to the House had been prescribed, or that there was an addition to the Quran, the number of units of prayer, the obligatory zakat dues, or anything similar, we would know with certainty that his report was false. Had any such thing existed, ordinary practice and religious duty would have required its conclusive transmission. The absence of transmission indicates that it was not transmitted conclusively, as ordinary practice and religious duty would require. Indeed, the absence of any report, despite every ordinary and religious reason and incentive to transmit it, is evidence that it did not occur.

Scholars have illustrated this with the example of someone reporting that the preacher fell from the pulpit on Friday and did not perform the Friday prayer, or that some people fought with swords in the mosque. If only one, two, or three people reported this, while everyone else did not, we would know that their reports were false, since such an event is something people would ordinarily have every reason and incentive to report—even though they do not report the absence of fighting or other things that did not occur.

This is further clarified by the fact that they did not transmit that he recited the opening supplication and the invocation seeking refuge in Allah aloud. The Muslim community has taken this as evidence that he did not recite them aloud, even though his refraining from doing so was not itself widely transmitted. Thus, the same reasoning by which we know that he did not recite these aloud establishes that he did not recite the basmalah aloud. And this