in creed, conduct, speech, and deed.
We therefore ask Allah, exalted be He, to guide us to His straight path, to keep our hearts steadfast upon His religion, and not to let them deviate from the truth. Surely He is All-Hearing, Ever-Responsive.
- His statement: “Then let him choose whichever supplication he finds most pleasing and offer it.”
There is no doubt that the intended supplication is the one offered inside the prayer—after the tashahhud (the seated testimony of faith) and before the taslīm (final salutation). This is its prescribed place: once the worshipper has praised and glorified Allah in the tashahhud, invoked blessings upon His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and while he is still communing with his Lord before departing the prayer. Thus, the legislated supplication occurs during prostration and after the tashahhud and before the taslīm, as well as at other appropriate points within the prayer. What is prescribed after the taslīm is remembrance, for Allah says, “When you have completed the prayer, remember Allah standing, sitting, and reclining on your sides” (4:103).
As for raising the hands in supplication after a voluntary prayer—whether that nāfilah precedes or follows an obligatory prayer—no sound report supports it. Should a person do so occasionally, there is no harm, but adopting it as a fixed devotional practice is unwarranted, for every act of worship must be based on following the sunnah, and no one may worship except with what Allah and His Messenger have legislated.
Many people have nonetheless become accustomed to this: whenever they finish a voluntary prayer they raise their hands; some do not even supplicate but merely wipe their faces with their hands.
Concerning wiping the face with the hands after supplication, only two hadiths exist and both are weak; they cannot serve as valid proof. Allah knows best.
Scholarly disagreement:
The scholars unanimously agree on the legitimacy of the first tashahhud and of sitting for it in prayers that contain two tashahhuds, yet they differ over whether these are obligatory. Imām Ahmad, al-Layth, Isḥāq, Abū Thawr, Dāwūd, and—according to one of the two reports from him—al-Shāfiʿī, all held that they are obligatory, basing their view on the hadiths concerning the tashahhud.