and others as well,” he added, “and he is matruk (discarded).” Ibn Hajar says the same in al-Talkhis (3/526). Al-Dhahabi writes, “They declared him weak,” and elsewhere simply, “Weak.” Al-Nawawi states in al-Majmu (3/313), in his Sharh Muslim, and in al-Khulasa: “The scholars unanimously deem this hadith weak, because it is transmitted by Abd al-Rahman ibn Ishaq al-Wasiti, who is agreed to be unreliable by the leading authorities of criticism and validation.” Al-Zaylaʿi (1/314) reports: “Al-Bayhaqi said in al-Maʿrifa: its chain is not sound; it is uniquely transmitted by Abd al-Rahman ibn Ishaq al-Wasiti, and he is matruk.” Ibn Hajar further comments in Fath al-Bari (2/178): “It is a weak hadith,” and therefore omitted it from Bulugh al-Maram, citing in that chapter only the hadith of Wail regarding placing the hands on the chest. As for the juristic views on where the hands are placed: the Shafiʿis—“and so say the majority,” notes al-Nawawi—hold that they should be below the chest and above the navel. Al-Nawawi explains, “Our companions rely on the hadith of Wail.” Al-Shawkani (2/158) responds: “The hadith does not prove what they claim, for they say the hands are placed beneath the chest, whereas the hadith explicitly speaks of placing them on the chest; the same applies to the earlier report of Tawus. Nothing in this chapter is more authentic than the hadith of Wail, which accords with what we have already cited from Ali and Ibn Abbas in their exegesis of the verse, ‘So pray to your Lord and sacrifice’ (Qur’an 108:2), namely that ‘sacrifice’ (nahr) means placing the right hand over the left at the level of the collar-bone and chest.” Abu Hanifah, Sufyan al-Thawri, and others hold that the hands are placed below the navel, adducing the aforementioned report from Ali; but, as you have seen, that hadith is unanimously judged weak, so it cannot be used as evidence,