822 — Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd and Ibn al-Sarḥ narrated to us, both saying: Sufyān narrated to us, from al-Zuhrī, from Maḥmūd ibn al-Rabīʿ, from ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, who conveyed it to the Prophet ﷺ — he said: "There is no prayer for the one who does not recite the Opening of the Book and more."

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And regarding His saying: "I have divided the prayer between Me and My servant into two halves," al-Nawawī said in his commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim: The scholars said: what is meant by "prayer" here is the Fātiḥah; it was called that because the prayer is not valid without it, just as he ﷺ said: "The Ḥajj is ʿArafah." This contains evidence for its being obligatory in and of itself in the prayer. The scholars said: what is meant by its division is from the standpoint of meaning, because its first half is praise of God Almighty, glorification, commendation of Him, and submission to Him, while the second half is asking, requesting, supplication, and neediness.

Al-Khaṭṭābī said: This ḥadīth may be used as evidence by those who do not hold the Basmalah to be a verse of the Opening of the Book. They said: had it been a verse, it would have been mentioned just as the other verses were mentioned. Since he began with "Praise be to God," it indicates that it is the first verse of it, and that the Basmalah has no share in it. The people of knowledge differed on this matter. One group held this view — it is related from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughaffal, and Mālik, al-Awzāʿī, and the partisans of opinion (aṣḥāb al-raʾy) held it, and the reciters of Medina and Basra followed it. Another group held that it is a verse of the Fātiḥah — this is the view of Ibn ʿAbbās, Abū Hurayrah, and Ibn ʿUmar; Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and ʿAṭāʾ held it; al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and Isḥāq inclined to it; and the reciters of Mecca and Kufa and most of the jurists of the Ḥijāz followed it. And see necessarily "Naṣb al-Rāyah" 1/327–328 by Imām Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf al-Zaylaʿī.

(1) Its chain of transmission is sound. Ibn al-Sarḥ: he is Aḥmad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd Allāh Abū al-Ṭāhir al-Miṣrī, and Sufyān: he is Ibn ʿUyaynah.
It was also recorded by al-Bukhārī (756), Muslim (394) (34), Ibn Mājah (837), al-Tirmidhī (245), and al-Nasāʾī in al-Kubrā (984) and (7955) via multiple paths from Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, with this chain — except that "and more" is not found in their versions.
It was also recorded by Muslim (394) (35) via the path of Yūnus ibn Yazīd, and (36) via the path of Ṣāliḥ ibn Kaysān, and Muslim (394) (37) and al-Nasāʾī (985) via the path of Maʿmar — all three from al-Zuhrī, with it — and Maʿmar added in his narration: "and more."