Explaining the importance of applying the rule of following the imam in prayer, based on his (peace be upon him) saying: (The imam is appointed to be followed...)

The Shaykh : Then, after that, I say: Applying this rule that came in this authentic hadith involves achieving some unity and closeness among the different schools of the Muslims, contrary to what was the case in the past and until recently. I witnessed in Damascus that four imams would pray in the large mosque there, known as "the Umayyad Mosque": one Hanafi, one Shafi'i, one Maliki, and the fourth Hanbali. Their prayer niches (mihrabs) still stand to this day. The cause of this division is, first, negligence of this rule, and second, negligence of a text much more important than this, namely his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying regarding the imams: So each of them would pray behind his own imam, claiming that praying behind an imam of a different school is disliked, and some did not hesitate to qualify their statement of "disliked" by saying "prohibitive dislike."
If they had followed the Sunnah and adopted the hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) as their school, they would have found comfort in it, namely the aforementioned hadith: . The strange thing about the existence of these four mihrabs is that the Maliki and Hanbali schools are lenient in this issue, because it is based on a contrasting principle with them: "Is the criterion in the prayer of the follower behind the imam based on his opinion or the imam's opinion?"
What follows from this is: if the imam's prayer is valid in the imam's opinion but invalid in the follower's opinion, is his prayer valid or not?
There are two schools: one says the criterion is the imam's opinion, so if the imam's prayer is valid, the follower's prayer behind him is valid. This is the school of the Malikis and Hanbalis. In contrast, the Hanafis and Shafi'is hold the exact opposite view, that the criterion is the follower's opinion, not the imam's opinion.
And of course, many scenarios branch out from this, which we do not need to delve into now.
The point of strangeness is that the influence of the two schools, the Hanafi and Shafi'i, spread to the other two schools, the Maliki and Hanbali, so they also established mihrabs for themselves, as if the issue were a conflict and a quarrel: why should the Hanafi imam have a mihrab and the Shafi'i imam have a mihrab, and we not have a mihrab?
Praise be to Allah, meaning your school was in agreement with the Sunnah, so pray behind any of the aforementioned imams, whether Hanafi or Shafi'i. Narrow sectarianism and jealousy of the other schools overcame them, and they also established a mihrab for themselves, just as those others had a mihrab. All of this is negligence of the correct Sunnah, starting from his saying: and ending with his saying: .