“Al-Hasan’s having heard from Samura is disputed; in fact, he is said to have heard only one report from him, the hadith on the ʿaqiqa.” I add: Although al-Hasan’s scholarly rank is undeniable, he is well known for tadlis (obscuring the immediate source) and irsal (omitting a link). Consequently, the hadith sciences require that none of his narrations—whether from Samura or anyone else—be accepted unless he explicitly says “I heard.” I examined every chain of this report found in the collections of the purified Sunnah and found them all in the form “from So-and-so,” with no explicit statement that he heard it from Samura. I also strove to locate a corroborating report, even with a weak chain, but discovered none. Hence the report carries no weight for me, despite the fact that al-Tirmidhi and others judged it hasan. For this reason I have omitted it from the present work. Moreover, as Shaykh al-Islam observed, the hadith itself is confused regarding the location of the second pause. A brief explanation follows: Four trustworthy transmitters relate the report from al-Hasan—Yunus ibn Ubayd, Qatadah, Ashʿath al-Hamrani, and Humayd al-Tawil—and all agree that the pause occurs after the recitation and before the bowing. Yunus and Qatadah, however, have two variants: one placing it before the bowing, and another locating it after the Fatiha and before the surah. Undoubtedly, the version of Ashʿath and Humayd, about which there is no disagreement, is the soundest and therefore takes precedence, especially since the other two narrators concur with it in one of their versions. Anyone seeking further detail should consult Ibn al-Qayyim’s treatise al-Salah and our own Sound Annotations on his Zad al-Maʿad. Shaykh al-Islam then remarked: “It is self-evident that had the Prophet ﷺ remained silent long enough for the congregation to recite the Fatiha, such a practice would have been transmitted with unanimous eagerness. Because no such transmission exists, we know it never occurred. Likewise, had all the Companions been reciting the Fatiha behind him—whether during the first pause or the second—their collective concern to preserve the sunnah would have ensured its transmission; yet not a single Companion reported from any other Companion that …”