Clarification of the ruling on the manner of lowering oneself into prostration.

The Shaykh : And we also ask: when one prostrates, does he begin with his hands or with his knees? Yes, there is also disagreement on this. One view is that he begins with his hands, and another is that he begins with his knees. We can say there is a detailed ruling here, though I have not seen the scholars provide a detailed ruling on this. However, in reality, there is a distinction: if a person needs to prostrate on his hands, there is no harm in placing his hands first; otherwise, he should not. The correct view in this matter is that a person begins with his knees before his hands, because the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said:
The student: So he should place his knees before his hands.

The Shaykh : No, I will read the hadith: This is the wording of the hadith; do you understand? But when a person reflects on the hadith, he realizes that the phrase: is inverted in the narrator’s report, and the correct wording is: Therefore, we say: begin with the knees, then the hands. This is also the natural order, because when a person lowers himself into prostration, the limbs descend from the closest to the ground to the farthest. The closest are the knees, then the palms, then the forehead and nose. Some scholars (may Allah have mercy on them) said that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: and the camel’s knees are in its hands. If one places the knees first, he has imitated the camel. But we say that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not say, “Do not prostrate on what the camel prostrates on.” No, he did not say, “Do not kneel on what the camel kneels on.” If he had said that, we would say, “Do not prostrate on the knees.” But he said, “Do not kneel as it kneels.” The letter *kaf* here indicates likeness, so the thing to be avoided is imitating the camel in the manner, not in the limb on which it kneels. Thus, it becomes clear that the view of Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allah have mercy on him) in *Zad al-Ma’ad* is stronger, namely that the hadith is inverted in the narrator’s report and that the correct wording is: Yes.