are in fact replete with passages affirming precisely what he denied?! Moreover, others had already tackled the point: al-Tahawi, for example, devoted a separate chapter to it in Sharh Mushkil al-Athar. After citing the hadith he wrote: “A critic said: ‘This wording is impossible, for the Prophet forbade him, when prostrating, to collapse as a camel collapses—yet a camel first goes down on its fore-legs—and then he added: rather, let him place his hands before his knees. Thus the very act prohibited at the beginning of the hadith is commanded at its end.’ We examined the objection and found it untenable, while the hadith itself is perfectly coherent and free of contradiction. The reason is that a camel’s knees are in its fore-legs, and so it is with every quadruped, whereas the children of Adam are the opposite: their knees are in their legs, not their arms. Therefore, in this hadith the Messenger of Allah forbade the worshiper to go down on the knees that are in his arms; rather he is to descend for prostration the other way—on his hands, which contain no knees—unlike the camel that descends on fore-legs that do contain its knees. Praise be to Allah, the wording transmitted from the Messenger of Allah is sound, without contradiction or impossibility.” End quote. Al-Tahawi expressed the same point in Sharh al-Maʿani. Ibn Hazm likewise said (4/130): “A camel’s knees are in its fore-legs.” Lisan al-Arab (1/417) states explicitly: “The camel’s knee is in its fore-leg.” He then adds: (1) Likewise, Imam al-Qasim al-Sarqasti relates in Gharib al-Hadith (2/70/1–2), with a sound chain, that Abu Hurayra said: “Let none of you collapse the way a runaway camel collapses.” The Imam explains: “This concerns prostration: he is telling him not to throw himself down all at once—as a restless, unsteady camel does—but to descend calmly, placing his hands first and then his knees. A clarified, prophetic (marfuʿ) version of this hadith has also been transmitted.” He then cited the hadith mentioned above … I have discussed the matter at length in my rejoinder to Shaykh al-Tuwayjiri, which I hope will be published.