and the prohibited. It was said to Abu Abd Allah: The hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Order Abu Bakr to lead the people in prayer" (13). Is it contrary to the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud? He said: No. In my view, his statement to Abu Bakr "lead the people in prayer" is for the sake of the caliphate; meaning that the Caliph is more entitled to the Imamate even if others are more well-versed in recitation than him. Thus, the command of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) for Abu Bakr to pray indicates that he intended to designate him as his successor.
Section: One of two reciters is preferred over the other by the quantity of the Quran they possess, due to the statement of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Let the one among you who knows the most Quran lead you." If they are equal in the amount that each of them has memorized, and one of them has better recitation and better grammar (i'rab), then he is more worthy, because he is "the most well-versed in recitation" (aqra'), and thus he falls under the generality of his saying: "The one who leads the people is the most well-versed of them in the Book of Allah." If one of them has memorized more, and the other makes fewer grammatical errors and has better recitation, then the latter is more worthy, because he is greater in reward for his recitation, due to his (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saying: "Whoever reads the Quran and performs its grammar (i'rab), for every letter he has ten good deeds; and whoever reads it while making grammatical errors, for every letter he has one good deed." Recorded by Al-Tirmidhi (14), who said: It is a hasan sahih (good and authentic) hadith.
249 - Issue: He said: (If they are equal, then the most knowledgeable of them in jurisprudence).
This is due to the statement of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "If they are equal in recitation, then the most knowledgeable of them in the Sunnah." Furthermore, jurisprudence is needed in prayer to perform its obligations (wajib) and sunnahs, and to rectify it if something occurs that requires such rectification. If two jurists who are also reciters gather, and one of them is more well-versed in recitation, and the other is
(13) Such is it, and its documentation was previously provided in 2/376, with the wording: "then let him lead the prayer." (14) We did not find it in Al-Tirmidhi with this wording, nor anything close to it. Al-Suyuti mentioned a hadith in Al-Jami' al-Kabir that is close to it in meaning with a variation of wordings on page 817, and he attributed it to Al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman.
