as well as Ayub al-Sakhtiyani and Ata ibn Abi Rabah. The same view was held by Ibn al-Mundhir and Abu Ali al-Tabari—both counted among our scholars—and it is one of the opinions ascribed to Malik and al-Shafii. Ibn Khawayz Mandad reports from Malik a narration stating that he would raise his hands at every descent and ascent, and toward the end of al-Buwayti’s book it likewise reads: “He raises his hands at every lowering and rising.” Ibn Abi Shaybah also transmitted the raising of the hands between the two prostrations from Anas, al-Hasan, and Ibn Sirin. Be aware that his remark about the majority—“and they weakened whatever contradicted it, as mentioned earlier”—refers only to narrations other than those we have just listed, for in the passage to which he alludes he did not discuss these at all, save for one report from Ibn Umar that al-Tahawi transmitted and labeled “irregular,” while Ibn al-Qattan judged it authentic. As for the narration of al-Tabarani on which we have relied, he did not weaken it; rather, al-Hafiz al-Haythami, the pupil of his father, declared it sound, as noted above. Since the hadiths affirming the raising of the hands at every descent and ascent are authentic, they must be followed, and it is impermissible to reject them or oppose them with reports that negate the raising; for in usul (legal methodology) an affirmative report takes precedence over a negative one. On the basis of this principle the vast majority of scholars have accepted the hadiths that establish raising the hands upon bowing and upon rising from it, as explained earlier. Anyone among them who now prefers the negating reports in this case falls into the very inconsistency he reproaches in others—such as the Hanafis who denied the raising in those two positions—whereas Allah the Exalted says: “O you who believe, why do you say what you do not do? It is most hateful in the sight of Allah that you should say what you do not do” (61:2–3). How excellent are the words of Ibn Hazm, may Allah have mercy on him, in reconciling the seemingly divergent hadiths on this issue