(1) That is, the prayer is deficient, a point the Prophet ﷺ underlined by adding: “not complete.” Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr explains: “al-khadaj means deficiency and invalidity. Thus they say akhdajat al-naqa or khadajat when a she-camel delivers before the end of its term and before the foetus is fully formed; such a birth is defective.” The hadith therefore shows that the prayer of anyone who omits al-Fatiha is invalid, even if he recites other passages of the Quran. The preceding hadith supports this, for it negates the prayer when al-Fatiha is left out, and the apparent sense is that the entire prayer is negated, not merely its perfection, as will be clarified. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr adds: “Those who do not hold the recitation of the Opening of the Book to be obligatory claim that the word khadaj indicates validity, because it denotes only deficiency and a deficient prayer is still acceptable. This is arbitrary and unsound; sound reasoning requires that such a prayer is unacceptable, for it has not been completed, and whoever exits his prayer before completing it must repeat it.” End of his words in al-Istidhkar, quoted in al-Taʿliq al-Mumajjad, p. 93. Malik, al-Shafiʿi, Ahmad, and the majority of scholars—among the Companions, the Successors, and later authorities—hold that reciting al-Fatiha is fard (indispensable) and that nothing else can replace it (al-Majmuʿ 3/327). They cite this hadith and the one before it, arguing that the wording negates the very existence or validity of the prayer, not merely its completeness; this is further confirmed by the variant wording, “does not suffice,” which plainly denies adequacy. Abu Hanifa and Muhammad disagreed, declaring the recitation of al-Fatiha wajib (obligatory) but not fard—according to their technical distinction—and they deemed a prayer valid even when it is omitted.