the claim of abrogation rests on no evidence whatsoever. Even were abrogation to be imagined in this matter, the result would be the reverse of what they maintain. Both Malik b. al-Huwayrith and Wail b. Hujr—narrators of the raising of the hands—prayed with the Prophet during the last part of his life; their testimony that he raised his hands on going into and rising from ruku is therefore proof that the practice came later and that the assertion of abrogation collapses. Were anything to have been abrogated, it would have been the omission of raising the hands. Further, it is Malik who transmits the “sitting of rest” (jalsat al-istiraha). They themselves argue that this sitting occurred only in the Prophet’s final days, when he was advanced in age, so it was not an intentional devotional act and hence not a sunnah. By the same logic, the raising of the hands that Malik narrates must be fixed and un-abrogated, because it too belongs to the end of the Prophet’s life; calling it abrogated borders on contradiction. The Prophet also said to Malik and his companions: “Pray as you have seen me pray.” In short, it is nearer to the mark to deem both patterns valid sunan, while the evidence for raising the hands is stronger and more plentiful. I add: Because of the hadith of Ibn Masud, Ibn Hazm judged the disputed raising of the hands to be recommended (sunnah). He states (4/88): “Were it not for that report, every worshipper would be obliged to pray exactly as the Prophet prayed, and the Prophet used to raise his hands at every lowering and rising; but once the report of Ibn Masud was authenticated, we learned that raising the hands, apart from the opening takbir, is merely sunnah and commendable.” Thus he regarded Ibn Masud’s hadith as a qualifier that shifts the command in Malik’s report—“Pray as you have seen me pray”—from obligation to recommendation. As for myself, I believe that our earliest imams—Abu Hanifah and others—had simply not received the mass-transmitted ahadith concerning the raising of the hands at the two aforementioned positions. Had those reports reached them, they would have adopted them and set aside the solitary report of Ibn Masud, just as they abandoned the hadith of al-tatbiq in view of the conflicting evidence. And this is corroborated