and it is a sound hadith that provides explicit wording on the very point in dispute. As for all other remembrances, supplications, and the congregation’s following the preacher in invoking blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ apart from the two-rakʿah salutation, nothing has come to exempt them from the general prohibition. Following him in sending blessings upon the Prophet ﷺ—although there is evidence that establishes its legitimacy—is, from one angle, broader than the narrations that forbid speech during the sermon and, from another angle, narrower than them. Thus two general principles are in tension, and one must determine which outweighs the other. This applies if the idle talk (laghw) mentioned in the hadith, “Whoever engages in idle talk has no Friday [reward],”¹ is taken to include every kind of speech; but if it is restricted to a particular kind—namely