Seven Points of Prostration: Getting Sujud Right

For the hereafter taken from the traditions of the best of servants of allah the prophet muhammad and this book of course authored by the esteemed scholar of islam the late sheikh shamsuddin ibn qayyam al jazeera we were discussing in our last lecture the issue of how the prophet salallahu and he would transition into sujud from the standing position by incrementally placing his various points of sujud or limbs onto the ground the nearest to the ground first so he would start with his two knees and then his hands and then his forehead with his the bridge of his nose and when he would raise out of sujud it would be the opposite right so he would begin with lifting his head followed by his two hands followed by his two knees also discussed various types of things which are prohibited in prayer types of movements or positions that would that would mimic various animals in their natural movements and we discussed those as well as he had said he prohibited a person go down from the standing position a camel would fall into a sitting or lying position or quick movements of the head to other than the direction of the qibla that of a fox waft and that a person extend his hands his forearms lay them flat on the ground that of a beast meaning lions or felines or he says and he prohibited sitting in the position that a dog a canine would sit which would be flat on on a person's buttocks with the two legs bent and the knees coming up here and the hands between the legs as we described before up and pecking and going into sujud like that of a crow what and lifting the hands when a person is making tesleem that of the tales of of horses as they swat with their tails and we described these things in detail in our last and previous lecture ibn.

[Silence]

He would make sujud on his forehead and the bridge of his nose without his turban being between his forehead and the ground right doing so when he would pray he would lift his turban to where his forehead was exposed therefore when he would go into sujud the skin of his forehead would be in direct contact with the ground or whatever was on the ground and it has never been authentically reported that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would make sujud on his amen on his turban so always a bare forehead onto the ground now there are two different issues here the first is making sujud with something connected to the head and shielding it from the directly touching the ground the second placing something on the ground to shield the head the first is something which the scholars of islam have mentioned is something that is discouraged it's discouraged that a person place any garment or anything that would cover his forehead or her forehead from touching the ground directly or whatever is on the ground this of course is not something that will invalidate a person's prayer rather it's mentioned that the companions would pray in the heat of the desert and of course when a person prays on sand in the desert that has been exposed to the sun it becomes extremely scalding hot and so the companions of when they would go into sujud they would position their their imam they would position their turbans or their head garments in such a way that they would protect their faces and their foreheads from the scorching earth this is something that is permissible but it is something that is discouraged without a need to do so meaning if i have no need to cover my forehead with some kind of head garment or something attached to my forehead when i make sujud then it is something which is discouraged i do however if there is some need right such as the example that we have just mentioned with the scorching sun scorching sand if there is a need then that that which is disliked is not considered disliked for any necessity for any need that would make a person need to do this thing the second thing is that some people understand this to be something that is going to interfere with the interfere with the validity of a person's prayer that if a person prays and his head garment shields a portion of his forehead from touching the ground or whatever is on the ground directly that this will somehow invalidate his sujud that is not the case rather it is something which is discouraged and there are some hats you know that are made where there's a cut out right here in the middle of the forehead so it's a hat but then there's a cut out right here so that when you make sujud and this is this is not the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to design hats that have a cut out for sujud is not something that the prophet or the companions of the allah ever did rather a person would lift it or raise it to expose his forehead and if his forehead is not fully exposed it will not invalidate his or her prayer the next thing we have is praying without the forehead touching directly the ground and that is with putting some kind of mat or carpet or some kind of thing that is on the ground and not attached to the forehead this is something which the prophet.

[Arabic recitation]

Would often do he would pray on many different things and this is what ibn al-qayyim now will get into he says and often times the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would make sujud directly onto the ground without there being any furnishing on the ground and he would even make sujud directly onto the ground even if it had rained and there was mud or water on the ground he would still make direct sujood onto the ground and sometimes he would pray on a sheet that was made from the date palm tree is something that covers right and this is why a head garment that covers the head is called a khimar in the arabic language and this is where the word hammer comes from which is alcohol or intoxicants because it covers the mind and a person can no longer think properly so he would make sujud on this as well and he would also make sujud on a mat which was woven from a date palm tree while forward and he had also been recorded to have prayed and made sujud onto a animal hide that was tanned of course when something is slaughtered or when there is a dead animal the hide is also considered to be impure until it is tanned tanning is when a person it's a certain thing it's it's you know it's garnished in a tanning solution whatever it is and then it is put in the sun to dry this is called tanning and this is something which purifies any hide right any hide that is otherwise impure is purified by by tanning so when you go to the store you buy some leather jackets leather coats you buy a belt whatever it is that's made out of leather you don't have to look if this is something that has been slaughtered according to islamic law because even if it was not the fact that this belt or this jacket or these gloves or shoes or whatever it is the fact that this has been tanned makes it pure makes it pure he says says and when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would make sujud he would clearly plainly place his forehead and the bridge of his nose onto the ground flatly right this is a mistake that is constantly observed and that is that many people make sujud on the forehead and the nose does not touch the ground the nose must touch the ground in order for a person's suju to be valid a person sujud is not valid if his nose does not or her nose does not touch the ground and when we say touch the ground we are speaking about and al-musa not only that a person place his forehead and the bridge of his nose onto the ground clearly but also that there be some kind of pressure that is placed at the hammer that a person must place pressure onto the forehead and the nose because in actuality the nose is part of the face and when we make sujud it is actually the face that is making sujud it's not the head it's not the forehead alone it's the face this is why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would often make dua in his sujud my face has prostrated to the one who has created it my face and so the forehead and the nose must touch the ground in order for a person's suju to be valid there is a narration in a sunnah in which the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam says and it's the narration of abdullah ibn abbas will be allah i have been commanded to prostrate on seven parts of my body seven parts seven points of prostration on the human body and so he said the forehead and the nose the two hands the two knees and the edges of the two feet meaning not the toes but that the toes be bent facing towards the qibla and that the edges of his feet be touching the ground this is a how a person is to make sujud when he would make sure he was he would open up his arms they would not be stuck to his sides he would open them up in some narrations he would open them up wide enough that if a hadith which is a small goat a little baby goat if it wanted if it it could essentially walk underneath his arm while he is in sujoot and so he would open his arms up and he would keep them wide and we mentioned that in sujood it's the same way that when a person raises his hands in prayer either up to the shoulders up to the ears shoulder width right this is how he would be in sujud sallallahu alaihi and if something we wanted to walk underneath his arm it could hypothetically now some people read this they learn it and they exaggerate and again we have mentioned something that is a concept of a luffy sunnah which is a concept of exaggeration in following the sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi what does that mean exaggeration exaggeration meaning taking it too literally to too harshly to the point that a person stretches it beyond what was intended so when a person is making surgeries in this position sometimes you see people open up their arms they have read these narrations they open up their arms like this in a very awkward way and they're taking up a huge amount of space and then they're even worse than that that people try to exercise this during congregational prayer and that's just not something which should be done a person in prayer has to hey he has his own space that he has to maintain and everybody else gets their space as well you do not practice your prayer at the expense of the discomfort of others this is not something which is permissible and so opening up the arms very exaggerated this is what's meant is that shoulder width either the height of his shoulders or his ears so imagine if this was the ground it would be this his forehead and nose would be on the ground and his arms would not be in it would be out this right this is how the prophet sallallahu alaihi would make sujud and he would spread his arms you know open them up that the whiteness of his armpit would would show right so if a person is in the sun often obviously the parts of his skin which are exposed to the sun most regularly these are the parts that are going to be darker so you know if a person takes his t-shirt off it lives in a sunny area oftentimes it'll the the part of his body where the garment is always there will will be wider than the rest of his body and so this is why it is mentioned that the whiteness of his armpits would show so he would open his arm significantly in a way that his the whiteness of his armpits would show based on whatever kind of garment he happened to be wearing at the time and he would place his hands at the at the position where his shoulders and his ears would be so he would be this he says and he would be well balanced in his sujud and he would point his toes towards the qibla he says and he would also place his full hand onto the ground with his fingers extended he says and he would neither open his fingers up in sud this nor would he cup them together rather he would just place them naturally now before we move on to this there is another issue that we'd to mention and that is where the feet should be now it's established in sahih al-bukhari that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam when he would stand for prayer when he would be in when he would be in sujud that his toes and every part of his body would be pointing towards the equivalent right they would be pointing towards the qibla and so his fingers would be this when he's in sujud and also that his toes would be pointing towards the qibla now there is an opinion amongst some of the scholars of islam that he would he would put his two feet together he would put his two feet together like this and so it would appear as if there's only six parts so his two feet would be put together just this this is a weaker opinion this is not an opinion of any of the four imams it's based on a narration in sahih muslim on the authority of aye when she mentions that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam she had awoken one night to find him not in bed and she had felt around of course there's no lights in in the the homes at that time there's no electricity there's no lit fires and she would she had felt around and her hand had touched both of his feet right his her hand touched both of his feet and in another wording of this narration which is in that his two feet were together this additional wording his two feet were together this is an inauthentic wording this narration is not authentic the only authentic narration is that she put her hand on his feet and she felt his two feet so some scholars say well the only way you can feel is two feet with one hand as if they're together and that is something which is subjective and highly speculative rather as mentioned in that the when a person prays his feet should be apart about six or seven inches apart right because if he puts his feet or her feet this and they are spread in that way shoulder shoulder width apart the toes will naturally face towards the qibla when a person is in sujud but if a person puts them together what happens well they start to point outwards and they can no longer be facing towards the qibla.

[Arabic recitation]

Is that during sujud a person should space his feet out not put them together but space them out with the toes pointing towards the qiblah subhan allah allah and he also commanded that subhana rabbi allah be said when a person is instituted and he would also say in his sujud subhannak meaning free from any imperfection you are oh my lord allah and i hereby proclaim all praise that is due to you o my lord o allah please forgive me and he would also say in his sujud similar to what he would say in his rook islamic to you alone i have prostrated and in you i have believed and to you i have sub i have and to you i have a slimt meaning to you i have offered myself as a muslim which is adherence right i have adhered to you my face has prostrated to the one who has created it and given it its image and has struck its hearing and vision meaning given my face it's it's hearing and vision blessed is allah the best of creators and he would likewise often say oh my oh allah forgive me all of my sins that which it that of my sin which is very substantial and that which is very minute and the first of my sin and the last of my sins and the public and private of my sins.

[Silence]

Which translates to oh allah forgive me all of my sins forgive me my ignorance forgive me for my wastefulness in any of my affair and forgive me for that which you are more knowledgeable of than even myself oh allah forgive me for that which is serious and that which is not serious that which is only jokingly and that which is earnestly and seriously forgive me for all of my mistakes and forgive me for all of the things that i have done on purpose intentionally intentionally and mistakingly and all of the previously mentioned traits are something that i have all of those kinds of mistakes oh allah forgive me what i have put forth what i have left behind forgive me for that which i have kept secret and that which i have made public you are my lord the one that i worship none is rightfully worshiped by you in nahum he says and he commanded sallallahu alaihi wasallam and encouraged that we work hard in our sujud that we make sincere earnest dua and that we make vehement dua while we are in subdued supplication and he said that the position of sujud and supplication therein is a position which makes it extremely likely that allah will will answer our prayers in such a position he says now we move on to another chapter we have finished then after completing his sujud the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam would raise his head while making tear without raising his hands so it's not rukur it's not going into sujud it's not before roku or after the after sujud there's no raising of the hands but the tekbir is made simultaneously with the beginning and ending of the transition from one position to the other just all of the he would sit and he would lay his left foot down behind his buttocks and he would rest his weight on it right and he would then set up his right foot so when a person sits on his you know he bends his knees he sits down onto his feet right he would place his left foot underneath his buttocks and it would be he would rest on it and the right foot he would set up with the toes facing towards the qibla right and i'm sure you all know roughly what it is i am speaking of this is how he would sit now is this the only way a person can sit no if this is somehow uncomfortable if this is something that a person can't do then they sit anyway that is considered sitting as long as it is not sitting in a way that the prophet sallallahu alaihi has prohibited and we discussed that previously some people can only sit on a chair some people can only sit with their legs extended some people may have to sit cross-legged whatever it is as long it is as it is not as we have mentioned and he would place his two hands on his on his thighs so he's sitting and he would place his hands right on his thighs now he would place his hands on his thighs and his elbows would also be touching his thighs right so he's got his his knees out and he's got his hands and his elbows right touching his thighs and the the fingers right where the where the knuckles meet the hand that fingers join with the hand knuckles he would place his hands in a way where part of his hand is on his knee and part is on his on his thigh min and he would with his right hand he would make similar to a fist but he would take his middle finger and his thumb and he would make a ring right he would make a ring with it so he's got two fingers closed and he's got a ring made right between his middle finger and his thumb and he's got this finger extending straight out and he would place that just this exactly this now some people have read this narration and they misunderstood what is meant by and they thought what's meant by meaning to make a circle was not with his middle and thumb rather to make the circle with his with his index finger while a person is making it so you see people making dua this and circling making a circle in the air like this this is wrong right what's meant is the circle is to be made here with the thumb and the middle finger right with the ring finger and the pinky clasped this and the the index finger pointing out towards the qibla zuma.

[Silence]

And he would extend his finger out right and he would move it very slightly in a stiff manner and he would make dua with it meaning you know as as a as if you're making dua here and you're kind of moving your hands alohuma right same kind of you're expressing your dua with the finger this is not the only time when a person would make dua with with one finger right the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam used to make dua just this with one finger during he would never raise his hands on the mimble rather he would only make dua with his finger this right and this is the sunnah making dua in the right and it's also the sun now when a person is into it they are making dua with the sub and he would say in this position o allah forgive me and have mercy upon me guide me and bless me this is how ibn abbas described the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to have made prayer and that when he was in this position right between the two sujud he would say my lord forgive me then right and he would rise up this is meaning between the two sujud he would place his finger this and he would move it now this is something which the scholars of islam differ on dead the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam put his finger out between the two sujud or only in tashahud ibn khayim views and his view is very strong he is a scholar of hadith he is actually in the science of hadith he views the this narration to be authentic that between the two sujud the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would raise his finger and he would move it and say or he would make the other dua right between the two just tashahud just this is one opinion right and there is a narration and sunna nabi dawud that affirms this other scholars of hadith say no this narration actually is what is called the makhlub it's in the science of hadith it's a very particular type of mistake that a narrator of hadith makes when he switches something in the narration because he misremembered right and this is do i excuse me a debate that has taken place in ancient times and contemporary amongst the scholars of hadith on whether or not the prophet sallallahu alaihi would raise his finger it would appear that the correct opinion is that he would not raise his finger between the two sujud and actually this is something that the narrator made a mistake in and it is hadith that he would raise his finger and make dua in tashahud not between the two sujud between the two the person's hands are just normal and they say subhan they would say between the two sujud right or a person would say between the two sujud.

[Arabic recitation]

Right the different narrations found in sunan either way he then mentions that you know we understand that he would go back into sujood again exactly the same way that he made sujud in the first then he would rise up from sujud he would rise up he would rise up on the balls of his feet so when he rises up when he goes from the first sujud into the sitting position he would rise up mufterish in the way that we described but when he would come up from the second sujud going into a standing position again he would not he would go straight up with his two feet put up just they are in sujood rise up onto his knees and then rise up onto his feet this is how abnor described so he would have his hands on his thighs as he would rise up sallallahu and when he would reach the standing position allah would begin to recite immediately not delaying his recitation as he would in the very first record now this is another issue which the scholars of philip debate and differ on and it's something which has been kind of misunderstood and it is called gelset what is is that after the second shoot before going into the standing position the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was narrated in sahih al-bukhari in sunnin hadith that he would sit then he would put his hands either his fists or his palms into the ground and stand up so he would sit just as he used to sit between the two sujud then he would stand up from there so he wouldn't go straight from sujood to standing rather he would rise to the sitting position then he would rise up this is called and its exact translation is the sitting of relief basically or rest resting sit what is that that is that instead of a person losing his balance losing his composure going straight out of suju the person should just sit first and then from that position going to the standing now some of the scholars of islam view this to be a sunnah and others view this to be something which is specific in order to understand this we have to understand something about the narrator the companion who narrated this to us his name is he's also the narrator who narrates the statement of the prophet he's the narrator of that hadith pray as you all see me pray now malik ibn huwaidith only spent about 20 some days in the company of the prophet sallallahu alaihi he came to visit with a group of other young men from his hometown they went there to learn salah from the prophet salallahu they spent 20 some days there and then they went home and this was in the last year or two either in the ninth or eighth year after hijrah so it was in the last year of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's life that they spent then they went back to their homes and by the time they had gotten back some time had elapsed and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam had passed away so when they were there they observed that when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would come up from sujud the second sujud he would sit then he would stand up but there is a problem and that is that none of the other companions of the prophet salallahu who prayed with him all of the time abu bakr and all of these companions that were constantly around the prophet sallallahu alaihi in the first row narrating to us exactly how he would pray none of them narrated to us this jel is tiraha right so now we understand when we collect all of that we say well why did abu bakr an al maranath man people who described the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's prayers such why isn't it mentioned they described to us in great detail down to what exactly the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam would recite and when how he would recite how he would stand how his fingers would be but they failed to narrate jealousy why is that why is it only malik who only spent a very small amount of time at the end of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam's life why is he the only one to narrate to us jesus from this when we look at this we come to the conclusion that when malik and his companions saw the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he was either ill or he was at near the end of his life and he was old and he needed to have that gel instead of standing straight up he was not as youthful as he was earlier right so he would have this gelset illustraca but not all of the time the companions understood this jealousy to be something that he would do if he needed to if he's tired if he's he's got some problems in his knees whatever it is if a person is this is this is the conclusion that we arrive at and this is the conclusion that ibn kayyem arrives at here that there is no jail is unless a person needs to make jail either way if a person wants to make jealousy that's fine but it's taken out of proportion and this is what the scholars of islam refer to as sunnah aspects of the sunnah way too far right and making them into something that is a bigger issue than it needs to be so for example one of the things people misunderstand with jealousy is that they make it really long so they'll sit right and there's people praying behind them everybody have half the people stood up half the people are still sitting there wondering what's the imam doing here right and then he'll stand up this is wrong none of the scholars of islam describe jealousy to be this is to be extremely brief so brief in fact that the scholars of phil describe it as being as if he sat on some lit coals what does that mean is that he would sit up as if he was sitting on hot coals very very brief sitting just and then he would move into his position that's the first thing so if you want to make jealousy you need to make it that way second of all if you are praying behind any man who does not make jail because this will cause you to lag behind unnecessarily behind the iman right you do not make jealousy if the imam doesn't make jill a third thing if you are an iman and people don't know about jealousy which most people don't you are not going to make jail because most people do not watch what the imam is doing this is these are some issues with regards to jealousy why do i bring it up well i bring it up because it's become an issue of contention amongst people like the hadith that's a very broad term he is so this is a very dangerous statement when you say this is the sunnah you're implying that anything else is not the sunnah and if something is opposite of the sunnah it is now iptida fideen right it is innovation and what this does is it causes us to make points of contention which are are not so cut and dried is it absolutely clear that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam all of his life no it is not right as a matter of fact overwhelming amount of evidence that he did not unless he was ill or very old is it absolutely one hundred percent clear that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam would place his hands on his chest and salah no this is not absolutely clear.

[Silence]

Foreign where that would be all of the narrations that mention where that is on the chest on the navel below above all of those are weak narrations so when we use the word sunnah we have to be very careful right because it can become a divisive contraption that this is the sun and if you do something else you're intending to diso disobey the prophet sallallahu alaihi and that is not the issue at all this is enough for tonight to allah.