and alternating between them is commendable; therefore the practitioner should employ one form on some occasions and the other on others, for such variation is closer to careful observance. This, God willing, is the correct view. Ibn al-Qayyim, however, maintained in Zad al-Maad (1/92) that the reports of Ibn Umar and Waʾil b. Hujr amount to a single description, attempting thereby to reconcile the different narrations. This is unlikely, because Waʾil—and not Ibn Umar—explicitly mentions forming a circle with the fingers. Allah knows best. (1) This is a segment of the previously cited hadith of Waʾil. The hadith is authentic, as noted above and as will be shown shortly (*). It is apparently contradicted by the report of Abdullah b. al-Zubayr: “The Prophet would point with his finger when making supplication and would not move it.” Abu Dawud (1/156), al-Nasai (1/187), and al-Bayhaqi (2/131) relate it through the chain Ziyad b. Saʿd – Muhammad b. Ajlan – Amir b. Abdullah – from him. Al-Nawawi (3/454) declared, “Its isnad is sahih.” Yet it is not sahih, for Ibn Ajlan has been criticised; the report is merely hasan when it is free from … (*) Its documentation and analysis have already been given on pp. 839–840. (*) For Shaykh al-Albani’s authentication of the report, see Irwaʾ al-Ghalil (2/68–69), Sahih Abi Dawud (no. 717), Tamam al-Minnah (pp. 218–222), and al-Silsilah al-Sahihah (7/551–554).