or their consensus constitutes authoritative proof. The dispute has concerned only whether the practice and consensus of the people of Medina constitute authoritative proof, with disagreement over this no less extensive than that concerning the practice and consensus of others, if not more so. Thus, the practice attributed to Sulaymān al-Taymī, Ibn Jurayj, and others like them is countered by the practice of the people of Medina, even if there were no authentic, explicit report from Anas contradicting it. How much more so, then, when the report from Anas is too clear, well known, authentic, and firmly established to be opposed by this broadly worded hadith, which has not been established as authentic and has only been graded as such by the likes of al-Hākim and his peers.

A similar consideration also reveals the weakness of the hadith concerning Muʿāwiyah, which states that he led the Companions in prayer in Medina and that they objected to his omission of the basmalah at the beginning of al-Fātihah and at the beginning of the surah, until he resumed reciting it. Although al-Dāraqutnī said of this hadith, “The narrators in its chain are trustworthy,” and al-Khatīb said, “It is the best evidence to rely upon in this matter,” as Nasr al-Maqdisī related from him, its weakness is evident on several grounds:

First, there is also an authentic, explicit, widely transmitted report from Anas that refutes this.

Second, the chain of this hadith rests on ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUthmān ibn Khuthaym