to which the term applies. Thus, anyone who holds that fulfilling the obligation can be achieved by performing only part of what the name covers does not require standing erect after bowing, whereas whoever believes that the entire act is obligatory insists on that upright posture. It is authentically reported that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said in the previously cited ḥadīth to the man to whom he taught the duties of prayer:
“Bow until you are at ease in your bowing, and rise until you are at ease standing upright.”
Accordingly, one must deem this posture a pillar of the prayer. All who maintain that, as a principle, the Prophet’s actions—peace and blessings be upon him—are not to be considered obligatory for other acts of the prayer that are not expressly mentioned in this ḥadīth unless additional proof establishes their obligation, rely on this narration. For that reason they do not regard the raising of the hands as compulsory, nor any spoken element of the prayer apart from the opening takbīrah and the Qur’ānic recitation. Reflect on this, for it is a foundational principle that runs counter to the first principle and underlies most of the disagreements in these matters.
The third issue: the jurists have differed over the sitting posture. Mālik and his companions say that one should place his buttocks on the ground, keep the right foot upright, and fold the left, and that a woman’s posture is the same as a man’s. Abū Ḥanīfah and his colleagues hold that one keeps the right foot upright and sits on the left. Al-Shāfiʿī differentiates between the middle sitting and the final sitting: in the former he agrees with Abū Ḥanīfah, in the latter with Mālik.
Their divergence arises from apparently conflicting ḥadīths, of which there are three:
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The first, unanimously accepted as authentic, is the ḥadīth of Abū Ḥumayd al-Sāʿidī describing the Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—prayer: “When he sat after two rakʿahs he sat on his left foot and kept the right upright; when he sat in the final rakʿah he brought his left leg forward, kept the right upright, and sat on his buttocks.”
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The second is the ḥadīth of Wāʾil ibn Ḥujr, which states that “when he sat in the prayer he would keep the right foot upright and sit on the left.”
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The third is what Mālik narrates from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar: “The Sunnah of prayer is to keep the right foot upright and fold the left.” This report is included in the Musnad because of the phrase “The Sunnah of prayer.” In Mālik’s narration from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, he demonstrated the sitting during the tashahhud: he raised his right foot, folded the left, sat on his left hip and did not sit on his foot, then said, “ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar showed me this and told me that his father used to do so.”
Thus Mālik adopted the approach of preferring this ḥadīth, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah