silently, O Persian, for I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: “Allah Most High said, ‘I have divided the prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves.’”’” To the end of the hadith.

This explicitly establishes that, according to Abū Hurayrah, the Mother of the Quran that must be recited in prayer is the divided recitation he mentioned. The Prophet’s words, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, also indicate this. This rules out the recitation of the basmalah being obligatory in Abū Hurayrah’s view. Thus, even if he recited it, he did so as something recommended, not obligatory.

Reciting it aloud while holding that it is not part of al-Fātihah is a position held by none of the four imams or the other well-known imams; indeed, I know of no one who holds it. However, the view that it is part of al-Fātihah and must be recited, but silently, is held by a group of hadith scholars and is one of the two positions reported from Ahmad.

If Abū Hurayrah recited it only as something recommended, not obligatory—and on this view, consistently reciting it aloud is not prescribed—then his reciting it aloud would all the more appropriately be taken as evidence that he intended to teach them that reciting it is recommended and prescribed. This is similar to ʿUmar’s reciting the opening supplication aloud, Ibn ʿAbbās’s reciting the Opening of the Book aloud during the funeral prayer, and other such instances. Abū Hurayrah would thus have intended to teach them that it is to be recited in general, even if not aloud. In that case, this would not contradict the hadith of Anas recorded in the Sahīh, the hadith of ʿĀʾishah recorded in the Sahīh, or other reports.

All this assumes that the hadith indicates that he recited it aloud; its wording, however, does not explicitly establish this, for two reasons: