(1) It refers to the knot by which the izar (waist-wrapper) is fastened; its plurals are ahaq and ahaqah. (6) Reported by Muslim and Abu ‘Awana in their respective Sahih collections. The narration is well-known from Jabir; we reproduced it through three of his chains in Sahih Abi Dawud, nos. 615 and 619, and in our critical edition of Sifat Salat al-Nabi. The additional wording at the end is preserved by Abu Dawud and others with a sound chain. Shaykh al-Islam (p. 32) comments: “In this hadith the Prophet instructed them to omit standing, even though standing is an obligatory pillar of the prayer, and he explained this by saying that the congregation’s standing while the imam is seated resembles what the Persians and Romans do for their dignitaries: they remain on their feet while the latter stay seated. It is obvious that the worshipper intends to stand for Allah, not for his imam. This, then, is a very strong prohibition against standing for a seated man. He also forbade anything that merely resembles such behaviour, even when that specific intention is absent; for that reason he forbade prostrating to Allah in front of a person, and praying toward anything worshipped besides Allah, such as fire and the like. This hadith likewise prohibits imitating the practices of the Persians and Romans, even though our intention differs from theirs, for he said: ‘So do not do it.’ Can there be any stronger warning against imitating them in mere outward form? “Moreover, whether the ruling in this hadith concerning a seated imam is still operative or has been abrogated, the evidence it provides …”