to clarify that the practice is permissible. The authentic reports cited by Ibn al-Qayyim should be understood in this light, so that the texts are harmonised and not pitted against one another. This is what appears correct to me, and Allah the Exalted knows best. As for al-Shawkani, he writes (2/144): “The hadith proves that offering voluntary prayers on a mount is permissible and that one must face the qibla for the opening takbir; after that, moving away from the qibla’s direction is of no consequence.” I reply: The hadith does not show that facing the qibla at that moment is obligatory, for it merely relates an action. At most it indicates that the practice is legislated and recommended—especially since the Prophet ﷺ did not do it consistently, as shown earlier. For this reason Imam Ahmad said—as Abu Dawud relates from him in the Masaʾil (p. 76): “When a man performs a supererogatory prayer on his mount, I like him to face the qibla for the takbir, on the basis of Anas’s hadith.” (1) ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad records the same view from him in his own Masaʾil. The Shafiʿi school has several opinions on whether facing the qibla is obligatory in this situation; the soundest, according to al-Nawawi in al-Majmuʿ (3/234), is that if doing so is easy it becomes obligatory, otherwise it is not. He explains: “It is easy when the animal is standing still and the rider can turn himself or turn it, or when it is moving and he holds its reins; it is not easy when the animal is being led or is unruly.” As for performing the obligatory prayer on a mount, it has already been noted that the Prophet ﷺ did not do so. The opposite is related only in the hadith of Yaʿla ibn Murra, who said: _________ (1) This comment shows that Ahmad considered the hadith authentic; it supports the position adopted here and answers Ibn al-Qayyim’s criticism of the report.