How do we combine moving the finger and pointing in the tashahhud?
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The questioner : Okay, can we clarify the point a bit more, Shaykh? How do we combine moving the finger and pointing? You just said that there is no contradiction or conflict in the language, but practically, how?
The Shaykh : If you saw me say to a person, "Come," would you say: "So-and-so pointed to so-and-so to come"? But what do I do?
The questioner : You move it. Okay, on the other hand, if we said to so-and-so, "Show us where this Najaf is."
The Shaykh : If we said to whom?
The questioner : To a man, to a person. If we said, "Point to the location of Najaf," and he sat down and did this, can we identify this movement?
The Shaykh : No, it cannot be identified by that wording, because the one who did this with a specific goal is not pointing. But if you go back to the hadiths reported regarding the sitting in the tashahhud, do you not find that the pointing is toward the qiblah? So, is the pointing toward the qiblah pointing or not? Meanwhile, the pointing you exemplified is not pointing here. Here, the pointing toward the qiblah is realized. This meaning combines the pointing toward the qiblah with the moving as well.
This is the thing in which I say it is necessary for the one who wants to write a book to be a scholar, a jurist, and a hadith scholar, so that he does not fall into any error, and this error spreads, and it becomes difficult afterwards to correct or rectify it.
The Shaykh : If you saw me say to a person, "Come," would you say: "So-and-so pointed to so-and-so to come"? But what do I do?
The questioner : You move it. Okay, on the other hand, if we said to so-and-so, "Show us where this Najaf is."
The Shaykh : If we said to whom?
The questioner : To a man, to a person. If we said, "Point to the location of Najaf," and he sat down and did this, can we identify this movement?
The Shaykh : No, it cannot be identified by that wording, because the one who did this with a specific goal is not pointing. But if you go back to the hadiths reported regarding the sitting in the tashahhud, do you not find that the pointing is toward the qiblah? So, is the pointing toward the qiblah pointing or not? Meanwhile, the pointing you exemplified is not pointing here. Here, the pointing toward the qiblah is realized. This meaning combines the pointing toward the qiblah with the moving as well.
This is the thing in which I say it is necessary for the one who wants to write a book to be a scholar, a jurist, and a hadith scholar, so that he does not fall into any error, and this error spreads, and it becomes difficult afterwards to correct or rectify it.