Clarification of the issue of clasping the hands and placing the right hand over the left on the chest after rising from bowing.

The Shaykh : Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His help, and seek His forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide, and whomsoever He misguides, none can guide. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His Messenger.
A questioner asked earlier about the issue of clasping the hands and placing the right hand over the left after raising the head from bowing. He mentioned to me that you say this position is not reported from the Salaf, and asked if letting the hands hang down is reported from the Salaf. I said, "No, neither this nor that is reported." He said, "Then how was it?" The speech ended there, but his point or implication was clear: how do you distinguish between clasping the hands, which you consider an innovation, and letting them hang down, which you consider a recommended practice? I answered that the question is incorrect. He asked, "How so?" We said that we do not consider letting the hands hang down a recommended practice in the sense that we draw near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) by doing so, unlike those who clasp their hands, for they consider clasping a recommended practice, as is the case in the first standing. Thus, the matter differs in our view from their view. They seek to follow the Sunnah and draw near to Allah by clasping, whereas we do not seek to follow the Sunnah by letting the hands hang down. Rather, we say this: The principle in all acts of worship is that there must be a text stating that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did so with the intention of drawing near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). If he performed an action and it did not appear from him (peace be upon him) that he intended to draw near to Allah in that action, then it is not a means for us to draw near to Allah. Rather, it is not permissible for us to add to his action (peace be upon him) an intention that he did not have in that action. From this perspective comes the detailed distinction between acts of worship that are recommended practices and those that are customary. The recommended practices of worship are those he (peace be upon him) performed with the intention of worship, so it is recommended for the Muslim to do so with the intention of worship. The customary recommended practices are those in which he did not intend worship, but rather did them out of habit or by nature. Both are permissible to do, with a major difference: if one intends to draw near to Allah with a recommended practice of worship, he is rewarded. But with a customary recommended practice, it is not permissible for him to draw near to Allah with it, because in this case he contradicts the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) not in the appearance of his action, but in the intention of his purpose. There is no doubt that the matter is as stated in his (peace be upon him) saying: If we assume that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed an action... it is established that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) performed an action with a certain intention. If the Muslim performs the same action but with an intention different from the intention of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), it is evident that he is not following him, but rather contradicting him in the unseen, not in the apparent. The criterion is always the unseen, which is the place of intention. We give two examples of this: one is illustrative and approximate, and the other is practical and real. The approximate example is that a man prayed a recommended prayer, let us assume the Fajr recommended prayer, praying two units as the Messenger of Allah used to pray them. And due to his precision in following him in form and appearance, he recited in the first unit after the Fatiha and in the second , but he intended that these two units were obligatory. Would he be following the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)? The answer is no, because he contradicted him in purpose and intention. I said that this example is illustrative, not real for the majority of Muslims, but unfortunately, some deviant sects that have strayed from the circle of Islam and gone far from it due to many of their beliefs of disbelief have fallen into this. That is the Qadiani sect, and I think you know that among the misguidance of this sect is their belief in the permissibility of prophets coming after the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and that one has actually come, namely Mirza Ghulam Ahmad al-Qadiani. They believe in him as a prophet sent by his Lord, and that the Muslim who does not believe in this prophet is a disbeliever. Among the beliefs of these people is that the two units of Fajr are obligatory. Therefore, if one prays these two units in the form as the Messenger prayed them, but with a different intention, it is evident that he has not followed the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). We come to a real example that occurs among many good people who are eager to follow the noble Prophet. For example, some of them grow their hair long and keep it. We have seen this in some Syrian countries, where some do this, and perhaps in others, and they say that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to do so. We will not take you far; the closest example is the turban. There is no doubt that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) wore a turban. Is this turban from the customary recommended practices or from the recommended practices of worship? If we look at the action stripped of intention or purpose, we say it is from the customary recommended practices, because as came in some reports, "Turbans are the crowns of the Arabs." The turban was not brought by the Messenger (peace be upon him) as a religious act, but it is from the customs of the Arabs and the requirements of their environment and climate, which is sometimes hot and sometimes cold, so they use it to ward off heat and cold. Similarly, it is established in the two Sahihs that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) used to wear sandals with two straps: one strap for the thumb and one strap for the four fingers. What do you call this sandal today?

The questioner : The Eastern one.

The Shaykh : Yes, this Eastern one in the East, but what do you call it here?

The questioner : There is no name for it here.

The Shaykh : What is intended by us in Syria, for example, is what they call the shirukh, or the sandal, or something similar. Yes, and peace be upon you, and Allah's mercy and blessings and His forgiveness. Is there any need? May Allah preserve you, if Allah wills. I hope that will be soon. Welcome. May Allah preserve you. Who is Abu Badr? He was here. Come, Abu Badr. It is established in the authentic Sunnah, as we mentioned earlier, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had two straps on his sandals. So if a Muslim intends to draw near to Allah by wearing the turban, the qalansuwa, or the sandal described earlier, he would have contradicted the Sunnah, because it is not established for us that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did this, this, and this with the intention of drawing near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). On the other hand, if a Muslim intends to wear white clothing, it might be said that this is also a custom. We say: if the matter had stopped at the clothing of the Messenger (peace be upon him), we would have included it with the previous examples. But when he (peace be upon him) said, as is authentically reported from him, , this type of clothing moved from customs to acts of worship. Someone might say that the turban is like white clothing, since there are reports regarding its virtue. We say: nothing has been authentically reported regarding the virtue of the turban that would move it from customs to acts of worship. The famous hadith stating, "A prayer with a turban is seventy times better than a prayer without a turban," is a weak hadith, as I clarified in *Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Da'ifah*. It is likely in the first volume of the four that were printed. Understanding these matters correctly keeps a person away from extremism in religion, and the opposite is exactly the case. In Sham, we have some people who you see are bareheaded and have shaved their beards, but when they stand up for prayer, they take a handkerchief from their pocket and wrap it around their head, claiming that in this form and shape, their prayer becomes seventy prayers. When we clarified the weakness of this hadith in its chain, we also clarified its anomaly in its text. We said: if the turban had any virtue, it would not reach the level of the virtue of congregational prayer. You know the saying of the Messenger (peace be upon him): . So how can this rag that its owner wraps around his head make his prayer, without any effort, seventy prayers? This is a hadith that is rejected in both its chain and its text. If we know this rule and know the criterion in it, it is far from what a person should do to include in his prayer something that is not established that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) intended to draw near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) by it. If this becomes clear to us and we are convinced of it, if Allah wills, we return to say: what would the praying Muslim do if no hadith was established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding placing the hands in the first standing? What would he do? Would he fabricate something artificial from himself, or would he leave his hands in their natural state and their nature, placing them on the chest, above the navel, or below the navel, according to the disagreement of the known schools of jurisprudence today? In my opinion, no one would say in answering such a hypothetical that if placing the hands in the first standing was not established in the Sunnah, we would have placed them. Rather, we would have left the placing, because placing is an extra action beyond letting the hands hang down, and letting the hands hang down is, on the contrary, a natural action. Therefore, it is not permissible, and this is the result: it is not permissible to counter letting the hands hang down with placing them. Just as we say that placing the hands in the second standing, since it did not come from the Salaf, is not prescribed, it is not said to us: did letting the hands hang down come? We say with complete clarity that it did not come. But what is said to those does not apply to us, as we clarified and explained earlier. This is what came to mind.The Shaykh : with what Allah the Mighty and Majestic has made easy, and we ask Allah to grant us success in the truth of what we say.