What is your opinion regarding what I read in the book *The Muhammadan Character* by Shaykh Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahim about the sitting of rest, that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)

The questioner : I read in the book *The Muhammadan Character* by Shaykh Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahim about the sitting of rest that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not adhere to it in the obligatory prayer or the recommended practice, and that if someone performs it, he should only do so in the voluntary prayer and it is not prescribed in the obligatory prayer, and that it is not permissible for the follower to perform it so that he does not differ from the imam. Is this statement correct, especially since he did not provide evidence?

The Shaykh : Rather, it is invalid. Yes, you need details. I am afraid you are in a hurry and then...

The questioner : ...traveling to Cairo... details.

The Shaykh : We say that the Hanafis deny the sitting of rest and claim that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did it when he was tired.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : And although this claim is devoid of evidence, and what is such is dismissed. Second: The ones who narrated this sitting are two men from the great Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him). One of them is Malik ibn al-Huwayrith in Sahih al-Bukhari, and the other, and this is the important one, is Abu Hamid al-Sa'idi. This man challenged the Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) by saying: "I am more knowledgeable about the prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) than you." They said: "Why? You are not more knowledgeable about his prayer than us, nor do we follow him more than you." He said: "Yes, I am." They said: "Then show us." And he began to describe the prayer of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and he mentioned in it the sitting of rest. They said to him: "You have spoken the truth. This was the prayer of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)."
If we set this narration aside and turn to the first narration of Malik ibn al-Huwayrith, we would find there also what strengthens that this sitting is part of the form of the prayer, and not as the Hanafis claimed in the past, and this is an innovator in the present, that we found in the hadith of Malik a very clear evidence that it is part of the form of the prayer, because Malik is the one who narrated from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): , so when he narrates to us that he saw the Messenger (peace be upon him) praying thus and thus, and he mentioned among what he mentioned the sitting of rest, glory to Allah! The hadith and examples say, the hadith says: The report is not like the eyewitness account.
The student : .

The Shaykh and This is a noble Companion describing what he saw with his own eyes of the manner of the prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). He did not say that the Messenger sat this sitting because of age or when he was tired. And the word "tired" (badan), and I am a non-Arab as you know, I did not learn it from dictionaries, I learned it from the hadiths, so these hadiths mentioned this word. For example, the Lady Aisha says that he . So the important thing is that this noble Companion, Malik ibn al-Huwayrith, did not say that the Messenger sat the sitting of rest when he was tired. Rather, if he had seen what the Hanafis see, he would not have mentioned in his description of the prayer of the Messenger that he sat this sitting, because it is not part of the form of the prayer. How is it, when he is the one who narrated to us: ? He is describing to the Tabi'un what he witnessed of the form of the prayer of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) so that they follow him in what his Companion described to them. So the statement that the Messenger did this when he was tired means attributing negligence to this Companion. And this crime becomes greater if we return to the hadith of Abu Hamid, which is in a gathering of ten of the Companions of the Messenger, and he challenges them by saying to the end of what we mentioned. They said to him finally, when he insisted on what he said, "Show us." Finally: "They said to him: You have spoken the truth. This was the prayer of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him)." So these people are accused of negligence and lack of precision in narrating from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), especially in what he ordered them to follow him in (peace be upon him) , and we follow the Hanafis in their claim which contradicts these witnesses, eyewitnesses. No, rather this is a form of the forms of the prayer, we do it in the obligatory and the voluntary. Yes.
Yes.