about the hadith of 'Uqbah (that there are ten good deeds in every gesture), and what is the ruling on gesturing with the index finger while moving it? And what is the manner of the movement?

The Shaykh : Is there something else?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Please.

The questioner : ...Oh Shaykh, we heard that it was reported in an athar from Ibn 'Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) that "there are ten good deeds in every strike when moving the finger in the tashahhud," ... from that?

The Shaykh : Yes, I remember that from 'Uqbah ibn 'Amir. In any case, what is your question about?

The questioner : About whether there are ten good deeds, is it correct, is Ibn 'Umar's statement mawquf (stopping at him) or what?

The Shaykh : Yes, it is mawquf. But this mawquf, whether it is from Ibn 'Umar or 'Uqbah or from both of them together, this mawquf is certainly in the ruling of marfu' (traced to the Prophet). Why? Because every good deed is multiplied by ten. So there is no doubt that the movement is a good deed, otherwise we would not do it. Since it is a good deed, it is done. And this supports what we hold onto in the prayer, which is moving the finger from the beginning of the tashahhud to the end. And this encourages us to apply what is authentic from the Imam of the Sunnah, Ahmad ibn Hanbal. And this is what I mentioned in the description of the prayer, that he said: "He moves it vigorously." Because vigorous movement means multiplying good deeds by the hundreds. So woe to the one who fights this Sunnah, denies it, and rejects it. How many hundreds of good deeds does he earn in this sitting that he sits in the tashahhud?

The questioner : How, my teacher, do I move the finger? How is it done?

The Shaykh : Yes, some of our brothers among those who work with us in the Sunnah, we see them moving the misbahah or the index finger. But some scholars do not consider it permissible to call this finger the "index finger" (sababbah), because this conflicts with the fact that one person curses another by doing this to his face. No, the best is the misbahah (prayer beads), he uses it for dhikr. The point is, some of our brothers, when they come to this Sunnah, they contradict the Sunnah there, due to their lack of attention and their absence from practical lessons. So they know that the Sunnah is moving the finger, but what do they do? Like this. This is the tashahhud. This is called lowering and raising. This has no basis in the Sunnah. The pure Arab Yemeni narrator, who is Wa'il ibn Hujr, said: If he had seen him doing it like this, he would have said: he lowers and raises, he raises and lowers. This is one thing. Second, some of our brothers do it like this, they kill it. He moves it, yes, he does not lower it, he does not lower and raise it, no, but he tilts it toward the ground. And the Sunnah is to point it toward the qiblah, toward the qiblah. So he points with it toward the qiblah and moves it. So this is something we should observe, if Allah wills.
Al-Halabi : My teacher, some people report from the Maliki school that their movement is to the left and to the right?

The Shaykh : It has no basis. Here, in reality, very strange things are mentioned in this Sunnah, despite its ease and simplicity. So first, some of the Hanafi extremists do not see the finger in the tashahhud at all. And none of these people have ever affirmed raising the finger in the prayer at all. That is, they place it on their thigh from the beginning of the tashahhud to the end. Some of them raise it out of modesty, they do it like this, and the matter is over, without gripping the fingers, they just put it like this. And this negligence is caused by a saying in the Hanafi school, from a Hanafi man, I forgot, by Allah, what his name is?
The student : In the summary... among the Hanafis

The Shaykh : What?
The student : ....

The Shaykh : It might be this one. He mentioned in the prohibitions of the prayer the raising of the finger. Raising the finger is among the prohibitions of the prayer. Knowing that raising the finger, regardless of the manner, is the cause of the hadith that is here, and from the hadith of 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, and from the hadith of Wa'il ibn Hujr, and others that I do not remember. And yet they say, these extremists, that raising the fingers in the prayer is among the prohibitions. And the cause of this is ruling by opinion over the Sunnah. And for this reason, they were called the People of Opinion from old times, because they used to rule their opinions over the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). What they liked of it, they accepted, and what they did not like, they rejected. And this exists to this day in many of the contemporary books today. But still, and praise be to Allah, over the days and years, there are people of knowledge in every school. So he authoredThe Shaykh : Ali al-Qari a good treatise in refuting this Kaidani or others, in a treatise he named: "Adorning the Expression by Improving the Gesture in the Prayer."
I want to say, after this clear error, which is that moving the fingers in the prayer is forbidden, it was established for the Muslims the Sunnah of gesturing in the prayer with different opinions: First: They differed on two opinions, is there movement or is there no movement, from the beginning of the prayer to the end? So the Hanafi and the Shafi'i say there is no movement... unlike the Malikis and the Hanbalis, where there is continuous movement, but there is a disagreement between them. The Malikis, as you heard from the brother Ali, they move, but first: they place the fist on their thigh like this, then they do it like this. We do not find any trace of this fist in the Sunnah at all. In fact, we can say it is contrary to the Sunnah, because the hadiths we referred to earlier, and especially the hadith of Wa'il ibn Hujr, says: "That the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), when he sat for the tashahhud, placed his left palm on his left thigh, and placed his right palm on his right thigh. So there is no placement... of the fist, but rather the placement of the palm on the thigh. Then after this placement, he gripped his fingers, and formed a circle with the middle finger and the thumb, and placed the index finger. So I saw him moving it, supplicating with it." So this circle that he placed, and changed the Sunnah, where did it come from? This has no basis, and it is only opinion. Then the Malikis hit the mark with the continuity of the movement, regardless of the manner, and they followed them.
As for the Hanbalis, they brought another matter, and this is all from pure opinion, despite how little we find that in the Hanbalis, and that in reality they are mostly characterized by holding onto the school of their Imam, the Imam of the Sunnah. But this is where they contradicted the Sunnah and the Imam at the same time. That is, they said: He raises his finger at the Name of the Glorious and like this. This has no basis. In fact, it is contrary to the saying of their Imam, as we said: "He moves it vigorously." And it contradicts the hadith of Wa'il ibn Hujr.
As for the other two schools, the Hanafi and the Shafi'i, they first: contradicted the Sunnah of continuous movement, because they said: He raises his finger in the testimony of the oneness of Allah. But tell the truth, the Hanafi raises it when he says "I bear witness that there is no god but Allah," no god but Allah. So he raised and lowered, and the palm returned as it was. The Shafi'is say: He raises it at the affirmation, "no god but Allah," and he remains like this without movement. We say to them, as we said to those before: Where did you come from that the movement or raising of the finger is only at the testimony? We will say to the Hanafis: Where did you come from that after the raising there is a lowering? We will say to them: This has no basis in the Sunnah at all. The closest of the schools, in reality, after the saying of Imam Ahmad that we mentioned, is the saying of the Shafi'is, where they raised and continued the raising. Because this lowering after the raising requires a specific text, and this does not exist in all the hadiths that we have come across. This is a word about gesturing with the finger in the tashahhud with its movement.