—I asked Abu Qilabah, ‘And what was his manner of praying?’ He answered, ‘Like the prayer of this shaykh of ours’—meaning: Amr ibn Salamah. Ayyub added: that shaykh would complete the takbir; and when he lifted his head from the second prostration he would sit upright, lean on the ground with his hands, and then stand. Hammad ibn Zayd corroborated Ayyub with a similar wording: “Whenever he rose from the first or the third prostration—those after which one does not normally sit—he would straighten up in a sitting posture, then rise.” Reported by al-Tahawi 2:405 and Ahmad 5:53–54; its isnad is also sound according to their criteria. Further reports on this point come from ten other Companions, among them Abu Humayd al-Saidi, whose narration will follow. After quoting the hadith, al-Tirmidhi remarked: “Some scholars act upon it; this is the opinion of Ishaq and of some of our colleagues.” This brief sitting is known to the jurists as the jalsat al-istirahah (the rest-sitting). It was adopted by al-Shafi‘i and by Dawud, and a similar stance is narrated from Ahmad (see al-Tahqiq 1:111), which suits him, given his eagerness to follow any sunnah for which no counter-evidence exists. Ibn Hani related in his Masail from Imam Ahmad (1:57): “I saw Abu Abd Allah—meaning Imam Ahmad—sometimes supporting himself on his hands when rising in the final rak‘ah, and sometimes sitting upright first and then standing.”