the report of ʿAlī—may Allah be pleased with him—was transmitted by Imām Aḥmad in his Musnad, by al-Bukhārī in his monograph on raising the hands, and by Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Mājah, and al-Dāraqutnī in their Sunan collections. It comes through the isnād of ʿUbaydullāh ibn Abī Rāfiʿ from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah be pleased with him—who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ:

“Whenever he rose to perform an obligatory prayer he would pronounce the takbīr and raise his hands to shoulder-level; he did the same when he finished his recitation and wished to bow, and again when he lifted his head from bowing. He would not raise his hands at any point of the prayer while seated, but when he stood up after the two prostrations he raised his hands in the same way and said the takbīr.”

Al-Tirmidhī commented: “This ḥadith is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.” It was likewise declared sound by Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Ḥibbān. Al-Khallāl related from Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq al-Thaqafī that when Aḥmad—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked about the ḥadith of ʿAlī he replied, “It is sound.” Al-Bukhārī said in his treatise on raising the hands: “All that has been added by Ibn ʿUmar, ʿAlī, and Abū Ḥumayd—who are among ten of the Prophet’s Companions—about his raising his hands when rising from the two prostrations is entirely authentic.” End quote.

His wording here, and in the ḥadith itself, “when he stood up after the two prostrations,” means: when he rose after the two rakʿahs. Al-Tirmidhī drew attention to this in his Jāmiʿ. One of al-Bukhārī’s two narrations states this explicitly: from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib—may Allah be pleased with him—that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to raise his hands when pronouncing the opening takbīr, when he intended to bow, when he lifted his head from bowing, and when he rose after the two rakʿahs he did the same.

As for the hadith of Abū Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him—it was recorded by Abū Dāwūd in his Sunan through the narration of