He further remarked, “It is sound according to Muslim’s criteria,” and al-Dhahabi concurred; their judgment is correct. Ibn Khuzaymah also declared it authentic (1 / 318 / 627), and it is cited in Irwāʾ al-Ghalīl 2 / 77–78.

As for the Prophet’s explicit instruction, it is found in the marfūʿ ḥadith of Abū Hurayrah: “When any one of you goes into prostration, let him not kneel as a camel kneels; rather, he should place his hands before his knees.”

It was recorded by Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāʾī, and others. Its chain is good, as stated by al-Nawawī and al-Zarqānī, and al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar further strengthened it, as will be shown. The report is also listed in the previously cited source (2 / 78) and in Ṣaḥīḥ Abī Dāwūd, 789.

These two ḥadiths face no real contradiction except from the report of Wāʾil ibn Ḥujr that the author quoted from Ibn al-Qayyim. That report is weak, for it passes through Shurayk ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qāḍī, whose memory was poor; a solitary narration of his is not a proof, let alone when it conflicts with stronger evidence. Hence al-Ḥāfiẓ stated in Bulūgh al-Marām: “The ḥadith of Abū Hurayrah is stronger than the report of Wāʾil.” ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Ishbīlī said the same; see Ṣifat al-Ṣalāh, p. 147.

Ibn al-Qayyim committed a clear error in Zād al-Maʿād when he preferred the ḥadith of Wāʾil over those of Ibn ʿUmar and Abū Hurayrah. He made other mistakes on this issue as well, which I have refuted in detail in my Taʿlīqāt al-Jiyād ʿalā Zād al-Maʿād and elsewhere. For present purposes, one example will suffice, for it is directly tied to our discussion and clarifies the Prophet’s statement, “…let him not kneel as a camel kneels; rather, he should place his hands before his knees.”

Ibn al-Qayyim—may Allah have mercy on him—claimed that the wording had been inverted by the narrator and that the original form was: “He should place his knees before his hands.” What led him to this was another assumption of his, namely, his assertion that