(1) He used to dislike praying inside the imam’s recess (taq). Sufyan al-Thawri said, “And we too dislike it.” Hence Shaykh Ali al-Qari states in Mirqat, 1/473, commenting on the hadith of Anas, “The Prophet saw a trace of spittle on the qibla-wall”: “‘Qibla’ here means the wall of the mosque that faces the direction of prayer; it does not refer to the mihrab that people now call the qibla, for mihrabs were only introduced after the Prophet. A number of the early generations therefore disliked building them or praying in them. Al-Qudai said: The first person to introduce the mihrab was Umar b. Abd al-Aziz when, as governor of Madina under al-Walid b. Abd al-Malik, he rebuilt and enlarged the Prophet’s Mosque. The place where the imam stands is called a mihrab because it is the most honoured spot in the mosque; by the same token a palace can be called a mihrab because it is the most honoured of dwellings. It is also said that a mihrab was originally the king’s private audience chamber, so called because he is alone in it; likewise the mosque’s mihrab is so named because the imam is alone there. Others say it is called mihrab because the worshipper ‘fights’ (yuharib) Satan there.” As for what appears in Awn al-Mabud on Sunan Abi Dawud: “Al-Qari’s claim that mihrabs are later innovations is open to question, for some reports indicate the presence of a mihrab in the Prophet’s own time. Al-Bayhaqi relates in his Sunan al-Kubra, on the authority of Wail b. Hujr: ‘I was present when the Messenger of Allah entered the mihrab and then raised his hands to pronounce the opening takbir.’” Shaykh Abd al-Hayy al-Kattani cites this in his Taratib Idariyya and endorses it. I reply: This objection and endorsement are of no real value, because the hadith in question is extremely weak; for al-Bayhaqi…