—and this chain is weak (1). Mujalid—namely, Ibn Saʿid—was declared unreliable by the majority of critics, and his memory became confused toward the end of his life. The present report comes through Abu Usamah’s narration from him, and Abu Usamah is one of those who heard from him after that confusion, as Abu Zurʿah states in Sharh al-Taqrib (2/389). Al-Hafiz remarks in al-Taqrib: “He is not strong, and his condition changed in his final years.” Concerning Mujalid’s teacher Abu al-Waddak—Jabr ibn Nuf—he says: “Truthful, but prone to error.” I add: ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn Ziyad also transmitted this report from Mujalid, but as a mawquf tradition halted at Abu Saʿid; that is most probably the correct version. Abu Dawud and al-Bayhaqi likewise record it in that form. Al-Nawawi judged the hadith weak in his commentary on Muslim, and so did al-Hafiz in Fath al-Bari (1/466), noting: “Parallel reports come from Ibn ʿUmar, Anas, and Abu Umamah as recorded by al-Daraqutni, and from Jabir in al-Tabarani’s al-Awsat, yet each of their chains is weak.” I further note that al-Daraqutni also narrates it from Abu Hurayrah, but that chain contains Ismaʿil ibn ʿAyyash reporting from Ishaq ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Abi Furwah; Ismaʿil is weak, and his shaykh is discarded, as stated in al-Taqrib. In sum, the narrations invoked to oppose the reports affirming that the prayer is invalidated by the three things are of two kinds: some are authentic—such as the hadith of ʿAishah and certain versions of the hadith of Ibn ʿAbbas—yet, upon fair examination, they do not actually conflict with those reports. (1) As I have demonstrated in Tamam al-Minna, p. 306, and elsewhere.