of it, without any of them objecting, indicates that they regarded the matter as optional.

I say: All that can be known is that they omitted saying it aloud. As for the imam omitting the takbīr silently, one cannot claim that he omitted it if the imam did not proceed to perform it; none of the imams has said this. Nor has anyone said that they omitted it whenever lowering or raising themselves. Rather, they said that they did not observe it fully. “Not observing it fully” means reducing it, and this reduction consists in not pronouncing it while lowering oneself, as stated earlier in his discussion. The deficiency lies either in not raising the voice when pronouncing it or in omitting it at certain points.

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr narrated that Anas ibn Mālik, may Allah be pleased with him, said:

“I prayed behind the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and behind Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUthmān, may Allah be pleased with them. All of them would pronounce the takbīr whenever they raised their heads or lowered themselves.”

He said: This conflicts with the report that ʿUmar “did not fully observe the practice of takbīr.”

It was narrated through Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz that al-Zuhrī said:

“I said to ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: ‘What prevents you from observing the takbīr fully, when your official, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, observes it fully?’ He replied: ‘That is how the earlier generations prayed,’ and refused to accept what I said.”

I say: What ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and these others were unaware of was only the practice of pronouncing the takbīr aloud, just as various groups in our own time have been unaware of it. An earlier instance is what was related by Ibn