of his body. Then he raised his head and sat until every part of his body had come to rest. He did the same again, then prayed four units of prayer like this one, completing his prayer. Then he said, ‘This is how we saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, pray.’”

This represents the consensus of the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them. They would only pray with composure. Whenever any of them saw someone praying without composure, he would rebuke him and forbid him from doing so. None of them objected to anyone who rebuked this. Their words and actions thus establish their consensus that stillness and composure are obligatory in prayer. Had this not been obligatory, they would sometimes have omitted it, just as they sometimes omitted what was not obligatory.

Furthermore, in the Arabic language, bowing and prostration require a person to remain still when bending down and when placing his face on the ground. Merely lowering oneself and rising again is not called bowing or prostration. Whoever calls it bowing and prostration has misunderstood the language. He must therefore provide linguistic evidence that someone doing this is described as bowing and prostrating before that person can be considered to have fulfilled the command, and before it can be said that this required command is fulfilled by performing whatever falls within the scope of those terms.

Such an argument is valid only once it is known that these movements alone are called bowing and prostration in the language. Yet there is no way to establish this, nor any evidence for it. Whoever makes this claim therefore speaks without knowledge concerning the Book of Allah and the Arabic language.

If doubt arises as to whether a person is prostrating or not, he cannot, by unanimous agreement, be regarded as having fulfilled the command. For the obligation is known, whereas the performance of