when he prostrated, he placed his head in that position between his hands, then he sat and spread his left leg... and pointed with his index finger... "the ḥadīth." It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, Aḥmad, and others with a sound isnād, and it is included in "Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd" (716-717) as narrated by other imams from a group of trustworthy narrators from ʿĀṣim, with some adding to others, and the most complete in narration are Zāʾidah ibn Qudāmah and Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, who is a reliable authority, and the narration is his. In Ibn Mājah's version, it includes the statement: "I saw the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) praying, and he took his left hand with his right." I said: If an observer looks at this sentence alone, without knowing, or at least not recalling, that it is an excerpt from the ḥadīth, they might understand from it the legitimacy of placing the hands in every standing, whether before or after bowing, and this is an error indicated by the context of the ḥadīth. It is explicit that the placement is only in the first standing, as in the narration of ʿĀṣim ibn Aṣraḥ, where he mentioned raising the hands during the opening takbīr, then bowing and rising from it, saying in both: in the same manner. If it were in the memory of Wāʾil to place the hands after rising, he would have mentioned it as well, as is evident from his mentioning the raising three times before it. However, when that sentence was separated from its place in the ḥadīth, it implied placement after rising, and some of the distinguished contemporary scholars said so, without having any precedent from the righteous predecessors as far as I know. What confirms what we mentioned is the narration of Ibn Idrīs from ʿĀṣim, in a shortened form, with the wording: "I saw the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) when he said the takbīr, he took his left hand with his right." Such misconceptions due to the abbreviation by some narrators or their lack of precision in the ḥadīth occur frequently. I have often said in many of my lectures and lessons about this placement and its cause: It is likely that a man will come with a new innovation relying on an unrestricted ḥadīth, not knowing that it is also restricted, namely pointing with the finger outside of the tashahhud! For in "Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim," there are two ḥadīths about pointing with it during the tashahhud, one from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar, and the other from the ḥadīth of Ibn al-Zubayr, each with its own narration