All of these opinions are found in the Mālikī school and among the jurists of the various cities, and al-Bukhārī records that they used to prostrate on their skullcaps and turbans.
Those who do not regard it necessary to uncover the hands during prostration cite the statement of Ibn ʿAbbās: “The Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—commanded us to prostrate on seven limbs and not to tuck up any garment or hair.” By analogy with the knees and with praying while wearing leather socks, they argue that the general wording of this report also permits prostrating on a turban.
Eighth Issue
The scholars unanimously agree that iqʿāʾ — a certain way of sitting — is disliked in the prayer, because of the ḥadīth forbidding a man to make iqʿāʾ in his prayer as a dog does. They have, however, differed over what the name itself denotes.
Some hold that the prohibited iqʿāʾ is for a person in prayer to sit on his buttocks with his thighs raised upright, resembling the way a dog or other carnivorous beast sits; and there is no dispute that such a posture is not among the legitimate postures of the prayer.
Another group maintains that the iqʿāʾ in question is for one to place his buttocks on his heels between the two prostrations and sit on the balls of his feet. This is the view of Mālik, based on the report from Ibn ʿUmar who said he only adopted that posture because his feet pained him.
By contrast, Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: “Sitting in iqʿāʾ on the feet in prostration in this manner is part of the Sunnah of your Prophet.” Muslim records this.
The source of their disagreement is the uncertainty over whether the forbidden term iqʿāʾ in prayer carries its ordinary linguistic meaning or a technical, legal meaning—namely, a specific posture to which the Sharīʿah has assigned this name.
Whoever understands it in its linguistic sense says that it refers to the dog’s way of sitting. Whoever believes it bears a technical meaning says that what is intended is one of the prohibited prayer postures; and, because it is established from Ibn ʿUmar that sitting on the balls of one’s feet is not among the Sunnah postures, he concluded that this is the posture meant by the forbidden iqʿāʾ.
This reasoning is weak, for names that have not been given a technical legal definition must be understood according to their linguistic meaning until a legal definition is proven—unlike terms that do possess a technical legal meaning, which must be taken in that technical sense unless evidence indicates the linguistic one. Moreover, the report of Ibn ʿUmar is opposed here by the report of Ibn ʿAbbās.