the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) while he was in prayer, and he would respond to us. When we returned from the Negus, we greeted him, but he did not respond to us. We said: O Messenger of Allah, we used to greet you in prayer and you would respond to us. He said: "Indeed, there is an occupation in prayer." Agreed upon. Both [versions] were reported by Abu Dawud, and his wording in the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud is: When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) finished the prayer, he said: "Indeed, Allah brings about from His affair whatever He wills, and indeed, Allah has brought about that you should not speak in prayer."

As for other speech, it is divided into five categories. The first is that one speaks out of ignorance regarding the prohibition of speaking in prayer. The Qadi said in "al-Jami'": I do not know of a text from Ahmad regarding this. It is possible that his prayer is not invalidated, because speech was permissible in prayer, as evidenced by the hadith of Ibn Mas'ud and Zayd ibn Arqam. The ruling of abrogation is not established for someone who does not know of it, as evidenced by the fact that the ruling on the abrogation of the qibla was not established for the people of Quba' before they knew of it, so they built upon their prayer. This is unlike the one who forgets, for the ruling is established for him, and unlike eating while fasting due to ignorance of its prohibition, for it was never permissible. The validity of this is indicated by the hadith of Mu'awiyah ibn al-Hakam al-Sulami, who said: While I was praying with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), a man among the people sneezed, so I said: "May Allah have mercy on you." The people cast their gazes at me, so I said: "Woe to my mother, what is the matter with you that you look at me?" They began to strike their thighs with their hands, and when I saw them hushing me, I became silent. When the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) finished praying—may my father and mother be sacrificed for him, I have never seen a teacher before or after him better at teaching than him—by Allah, he did not rebuke me, nor strike me, nor revile me,