93 — Errors Relating to Raising the Hands
Our discussion continues to concern raising the hands in supplication. We have already discussed the benefit and importance of doing so in supplication, and how it is one of the means by which supplication is accepted, for it manifests one’s neediness, submission, and need of the Generous Lord. The servant extends his hands to Him, begging for sustenance, asking, and humbling himself; and Allah, Glorious and Exalted, never sends away hands extended to Him empty and disappointed.
Among the matters to which a Muslim must attend in this regard are striving to learn the Prophet’s guidance—peace and blessings be upon him—following in his footsteps, adhering to his way, and avoiding the forms, postures, and movements that people have introduced when raising their hands but which are not established from Allah’s Messenger—peace and blessings be upon him—the best of the Ummah and the most perfect of them in supplication and obedience to Allah. It is authentically reported that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said, “When you ask Allah, ask Him with the palms of your hands, and do not ask Him with their backs.”1
A report from Ibn Abbās—may Allah be pleased with him and his father—has been transmitted both as his own statement and as traced back to the Prophet: “Asking is to raise your hands level with your shoulders, or thereabouts; seeking forgiveness is to point with one finger; and earnest entreaty is to extend both hands.”2
Commenting on this hadith, Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him—said: “He thus set out three levels: pointing with one finger, as he used to do on Fridays from the pulpit; the second is asking, which is to hold one’s hands level with one’s shoulders