the Sunna suggests pauses long enough for reciting al-Fatiha (the Opening Surah). A fuller discussion of this will follow shortly, God willing. In short, this hadith exposes how scholars sometimes waver in applying their own methodological rules to subsidiary questions in order to shore up their juridical schools. The Hanafis accepted the hadith even though it does not accord with their principles; hence they should either have rejected it—as they did the hadith of the dog’s lapping and similar reports—or revised their principle in line with the truth. Abu al-Hasanat drew attention to this, and it is one of his merits. The Shafiʿis did the reverse: they dismissed the hadith and answered it in a way that conflicts with their stated principle. They therefore ought either to relinquish that principle so that their answer would stand, or to hold fast to it and act on the hadith—which is the correct course. “Surely in this there is a reminder for whoever has a heart” (Q 50:37). The majority furthermore buttressed their position with the previously cited verse and its occasion of revelation. Ibn Taymiyya writes in his Fatwa collection (2/142–143): “It is mass-transmitted from the early generations that the verse was revealed about recitation in prayer. Imam Ahmad reported the consensus that it was revealed for that purpose and the consensus that the follower is not required to recite while the imam is reciting aloud. We say: The Almighty’s words, ‘When the Quran is recited, listen to it and keep silent so that you may receive mercy’ (Q 7:204), are general. They must refer either to recitation during prayer, to recitation outside prayer, or to both. The second possibility is definitively false, for no Muslim has ever claimed that attentive listening is obligatory outside the prayer but not inside it. Moreover, listening to the imam’s recitation—when one is obliged to follow him—is more deserving of attention than listening to someone reciting outside the prayer, and that clearly falls under the verse, whether by specific or by general application. In either case,”}