Muwatta 224

A hadith with which Malik opens the chapter "reciting behind the imam in prayers that are not recited aloud". It joins the ruling on reciting the Fatiha in prayer with a sacred hadith on the meaning of the Fatiha. He transmits it from al-Ala ibn Abd al-Rahman, from Abu al-Sa'ib, freedman of Hisham ibn Zuhra, from Abu Hurayra ¹.

Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) heard the Prophet ﷺ say: "Whoever prays a prayer in which he does not recite the Mother of the Book, it is deficient, deficient, deficient, incomplete." Abu al-Sa'ib asked him: "Sometimes I am behind the imam?" He nudged his arm and said: "Recite it to yourself, Persian." Then he related from the Prophet that God said: "I have divided the prayer between Me and My servant into two halves, half of it is for Me and half of it for My servant, and My servant shall have what he asks." The Prophet then explained it verse by verse from Surat al-Fatiha: when the servant praises his Lord, God says: "My servant has praised Me"; when he describes Him as merciful, God says: "My servant has extolled Me"; when he mentions His kingship over the Day of Judgement, God says: "My servant has glorified Me"; when he says that he worships Him and asks Him for help, God says: "This verse is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he asks"; and when he asks for guidance to the straight path, God says: "These are for My servant, and My servant shall have what he asks" ¹.

The editor takes the hadith from the sources of Malik's students in Muslim (2/9–10), Abu Dawud (821), al-Nasa'i (2/135), Ibn Hibban (1784), Ibn Khuzayma (502), Ahmad (2/460), and al-Bukhari in his work on reciting behind the imam and in his work on the creation of human acts. Ibn Abd al-Barr notes that the hadith is in the Muwatta only through al-Ala, in the version of all the transmitters. He adds that Mutarrif alone, outside the Muwatta, transmitted it from Malik, from Ibn Shihab, from Abu al-Sa'ib, and that this is a strange version. Shu'ba, al-Thawri, Ibn 'Uyayna and others transmitted it from al-Ala from his father from Abu Hurayra, and this is not a difference. The hadith is therefore sound through al-Ala from his father and also from Abu al-Sa'ib, and Abu Uways and Ibn 'Ajlan both took it from him together (al-Tamhid 20/187–189). ^{2 3}

The hadith is a foundation among Sunnis for the obligation of reciting the Fatiha in prayer, and for the meaning of the sacred hadith. It also calls the Fatiha "the prayer". ¹