the Merciful” for the Mother of the Quran (al-Fatiha) and did not recite it for the surah that followed—this is Ibn Jurayj’s wording as recorded by al-Shafi‘i. At another time he says: “He did not recite: Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim when he opened the Quran”—this is the version transmitted by Ibn ‘Ayyash. Elsewhere he says: “He did not recite: Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim for the Mother of the Quran, nor did he recite it for the surah that followed”—this is al-Daraqutni’s report from Ibn Jurayj. Al-Zayla‘i (1/354) comments: “Such inconsistency in chain and wording renders the hadith weak, for it indicates a lack of precision.” Third, when Mu‘awiyah arrived in Madinah, Anas was living in Basra; to our knowledge no one has claimed that Anas was with Mu‘awiyah on that occasion. The evident likelihood is that he was not. Fourth, the settled practice of the people of Madinah—both early and late—is to omit the audible basmala, and some even hold that it is not to be recited at all. ‘Urwah ibn al-Zubayr, one of the seven jurists, said: “I met the leading imams and they would begin the recitation only with: al-hamdu lillahi rabbi l-‘alamin.” ‘Abd al-Rahman al-A‘raj said the same. No sound chain from any scholar of Madinah shows that he recited the basmala aloud, save for a few isolated cases that can be otherwise explained. Their practice has been handed down generation after generation; how, then, could they censure Mu‘awiyah for doing what conformed to their own custom? Such a claim is baseless. Fifth, had Mu‘awiyah truly returned to pronouncing the basmala aloud, as alleged, this would surely have been well known among the people of Syria who accompanied him, yet no one has reported that from Mu‘awiyah; rather