Hāmid, al-Qādī, and others, although they disagree over whether a man standing beside her counts as standing alone. Ahmad’s explicitly reported position is that the prayer of someone standing immediately beside her is invalid. As for a man standing alone behind the row, they agree that this is disliked and contrary to the Sunnah. How, then, can what is prohibited be deemed analogous to what is commanded? Likewise, the imam’s standing ahead of the row is the Sunnah. How can what is commanded be deemed analogous to what is prohibited? Valid analogy compares a case on which the texts are silent with one they explicitly address. Comparing one explicitly addressed case with another for which the texts establish a contrary ruling is invalid by scholarly agreement—as with comparing usury to trade, when Allah has permitted trade and forbidden usury.

(Second, the woman stood behind the row because she had no one with whom to form a row, and she could not stand in a row with the men. Thus, had another woman been praying with her, she ought to have stood alongside her, and the same ruling would have applied to her as to a man standing apart from the men’s row. The analogous case is that of a man who can find nowhere to stand except behind the row. Those who consider the prayer of someone standing alone invalid disagree over this case. Otherwise, it is evident that his prayer in this situation is valid, because all obligatory acts of prayer are waived when one is unable to perform them. Applying this principle consistently also entails the validity of praying ahead of the imam when there is a need, as a group of scholars holds. This is also one view within Ahmad’s school.