Hence it is sufficient, for the point at issue, that the report obliges us to act on its own import and on nothing else. Its import is that a prayer in which the Opening Chapter of the Book (al-Fatiha) has not been recited is invalid; therefore the duty to act on the report requires us to pronounce that prayer void, and that is precisely what we seek to establish. Accordingly, the hadith indicates that the prayer is null if al-Fatiha is omitted. One may only argue that the imam’s recitation counts for the follower when the follower leaves out al-Fatiha while the imam recites it. End of quotation. This is an excellent piece of analysis by al-Sindi, may Allah have mercy on him. (1) The Hanafis have further compelled their adversaries among the majority to concede that the recitation of an additional passage of the Quran beyond al-Fatiha is likewise obligatory, on the strength of the phrase cited earlier: “and up.” They maintain that if the hadith establishes the indispensability (rukniyya) of al-Fatiha, then this extra clause, and anything comparable to it, equally establishes the indispensability of something additional to al-Fatiha. The reply is that this extra phrase was introduced solely to forestall the misconception that the ruling is restricted to al-Fatiha alone. Al-Bukhari says in his treatise Juzʾ al-Qiraʾa (2): … (1) It is astonishing that some of our Hanafi scholars deemed it acceptable to restrict the unqualified wording of the noble verse by invoking the Prophet’s statement, “There is no prayer without the Opening Chapter of the Book,” whose authenticity is unanimously accepted, while they also particularized its generality by citing his statement, “Whoever has an imam, the imam’s recitation suffices for him,” even though the authenticity of that hadith is disputed, as will be shown. If it is said that they allowed this because the general import of the verse is speculative—inasmuch as part of it has been exempted, namely the latecomer who catches the imam while he is bowing, by consensus—the answer is that this alleged consensus is unfounded, for a group of Shafi‘i scholars dissented, as detailed in the expansive works. Even if we concede the consensus, the unrestricted sense inferred from the verse remains speculative and is not unanimously accepted, as noted earlier; it may therefore be qualified by a speculative proof from the sunnah. Reflect on this.