Section Two
On locating the points in the prayer where the prostration of forgetfulness is performed

The scholars differed over where this prostration is to be placed, arriving at five opinions:

1. The Shāfiʿīs hold that the prostration of forgetfulness is always made before the closing salām.

2. The Ḥanafīs maintain that it is always made after the salām.

3. The Mālikīs draw a distinction: if the prostration is due to an omission it is performed before the salām, but if it is due to an addition it is performed after the salām.

4. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal says: one prostrates before the salām in those cases in which the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—prostrated before the salām, and after the salām in those cases in which he prostrated after it; for any lapse not covered by those specific instances, the prostration is always made before the salām.

5. The Literalists (Ahl al-Ẓāhir) assert that the prostration of forgetfulness is required only in the five situations where the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—actually performed it; for anything else, if the missed element is obligatory it must merely be supplied, and if it is recommended nothing further is required.

The cause of their disagreement is that it is authentically reported that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—prostrated both before and after the salām.

Thus, in the ḥadīth of Ibn Buhaynah it is established that he said:

“The Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—prayed two rakʿahs for us, then rose without sitting. The people rose with him, and when he had completed his prayer he performed two prostrations while still seated.”

It is also established that he prostrated after the salām, as in the previously cited ḥadīth of Dhī al-Yadayn, when he concluded the prayer after only two rakʿahs.

Those who allow analogy (qiyās) in matters of the prostration of forgetfulness—that is, those who deem it permissible to extend the rulings found in these sound narrations to their counterparts—developed three approaches:

a) the method of preference (tarjīḥ),
b) the method of reconciliation (jamʿ), and
c) a combined method of reconciliation and preference.

Whoever preferred the ḥadīth of Ibn Buhaynah maintained that the prostration should be before the salām, adducing as proof the sound ḥadīth of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī in which the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—said:

“If any one of you is uncertain in his prayer and does not know whether he has prayed three or four rakʿahs, let him pray one additional rakʿah and then perform two prostrations while seated before the salām. If the rakʿah he added makes five, these two prostrations pair it off; and if it makes four, the two prostrations humiliate Satan.”

They argued that this ḥadīth prescribes prostration for a possible addition before the salām, because the added rakʿah might turn out to be a fifth.

They also cited the report from Ibn Shihāb who said:

“The last of the two practices observed by the Messenger of God—peace and blessings be upon him—was to prostrate before the salām.”