The issue of the indexfinger in the tashahhud according to the early Hanafi mutun works

In the book al-Muhit'ul Burhaani, al-Bukhari (d. 616H) said: "Pointing is a sunnah. A person raises his index finger during nafy and lowers it during ithbat. This is the opinion of Abu Hanifa and Imam Muhammad. There are many news (akhbar) and hadiths (asar) on this subject. Therefore, it is better to act according to it."

[my note: Here it seems al-Bukhari hints or suggests that it is the view of Abu Hanifa and Imaam Muhammad that one should raise the finger when saying "laa ilaaha" and lower it when having said "ill Allaah", however the truth is that there is no such narration from Imaam Muhammad or Abu Hanifa, as we will see this view came from al-Halwaani who is considered a Mujahid fil Masail]

The earliest source after what is attributed to Imaam Muhammad and Abu Yusuf, is what is related from:

Abu Jafar al Hinduwaani (d. 362H).
His description of how to point i.e. with forming a ring was mentioned by al-Kasani (d. 587H).

al-Signaki (d. 711H) mentioned in his Sharh of Hidaayah the source for al-Hinduwaani's saying as being the al-Mabsut of Shaykh al-Islaam Khawarzadah (d. 483H).

al-Kaki (d. 749H) mentioned in his Sharh on Hidaayah the riwaaya from al-Halwaani (d. 452H) that one should raise it at "Laa ilaaha" and lower it at "ill Allaah".

[my note: In my opinion it is al-Halwaani who is the first person who mentioned the raising and lowering, and he is regarded a Mujtahid fil Masail, i.e. a Mujtahid who may do ijtihad in masail that are not narrated from the Mutlaq Mujtahids using their usul... like the issue of HOW exactly to raise ones finger in tashahhud.]

Through years of deep research i was lately able to find a earlier source to whom the pointing in tashahhud was ascribed: al-Quduri (d. 428H) related it to al-Hasan bin Ziyad (d. 204H) as follows in the chapter on Qunut in Witr:

وروى الحسن عن أبي حنيفة قال: إذا كبّر للقنوت أخَذَ في الدعاء، وأرسل يديه، وأشر بأصبعه السبَّابة من يده اليمنى.

Then he said:

وأما رواية الحسن في الإشارة بالأصبع، فقد ذكر الحسن في روايته: أنه
يُشير في حال التشهد أيضًا، وروي عن محمد ابن الحنفية: أن الإشارة في دعاء الرغبة: أن يجعل باطن راحتيه إلى السماء، والرهبة: أن يجعل ظهر كفيه إلى وجهه كالمستغيث، والمسألة أن يشير بسَبَّابته

You should thank me for finding such a great source, but hey who am i, i am just ignorance.

 

4th level mujtahid - among as'hab al-takhrij - seeks to crowdsource his takhrij. amazing!

at your level, one would expect a statement - after having seen all extant works and analysed which are to be trusted, which are unreliable etc. what we see is begging for sources!

you have read all these books. you should tell us. all these books are listed on shamela.

besides, you must share your copy of mukhtasar al-karkhi; why should we be pleased with a later scholar's commentary on the work? we want to look in the mukhtasar ourselves.

mujtahid of the 4th rank has no clue where to find the sharh of isbijabi; and he needs help for his ijtihad. and i am wont to think that if i give him the work, he will not be able to even read it.

this is like saying: i checked my library and i couldn't find it. hence al-amaali does not exist. and therefore, anyone quoting from it is unreliable: 'how can they quote from a book that does not exist?'

non-extant, but not non-existent.

 

you are a troll.

i did not say that it has anything wahabi in it. it was just an observation.

it sems you cannot read arabic. or if you did, you are not interested in answers, but to just impose your viewpoint. else, you would not ask the questions repeatedly. therefore, i think that you are not a serious "ilmseeker" but are pursuing an agenda.

ulama have warned against the nouveau-scholar who seeks to show off his learning by bickering about trivial things.

---
i mentioned a book and a post from 2008. and then added another book. you ignored both books and spoke about the post. and then came up with another work which you found "beneficial".

the first book was by ibn abidin - and the second by ali al-qari; and both ulama are quoted as sources in the book that you found beneficial.

if you had read either of the books, you would find answers to your questions in the first post. but you are driving on something else.

---
it is also apparent that you are ignorant of the hanafi madh'hab, or a wannabe mujtahid seeking "early mutun". clearly you do not know the process and the heritage of the hanafi madh'hab. dropping names doesn't cut with me - on the contrary, i see a schoolboy who has no clue of the authorities in the madh'hab, the books, tarjih, etc.

this is also apparent from your ignorance of the names of books and ulama - istijabi instead of isbijabi.

this is nooruddin level ignorance... and arrogance.

as if you have access to all the sources - and as if those who quoted later are unreliable and you wanted to check them yourself. as if this was not 1300 years ago. as if all those sources were published and multiple muhaqqaq editions available from 1300 years ago. as if you are in a position to accept and reject 'sources'.

either you are a hanafi - or you are not. either you are looking for hanafi opinions of as'hab tarjih-taS'hih and as'Hab al-fatawa - or you are trying to form your own cocktail of opinions based on a delusion that you can derive or prioritise from mutun... as if you are living in the 2nd-3rd century hijri or that you know better or are a greater researcher than ibn humam or al-ayni.

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how ignorant!
if you don't have access doesn't mean ulama 1000 years ago didn't either. the above statement is extremely stupid and after your latest post in another thread, i think i should not waste my time and stop talking to a madman.

 

To be honest, i didnt see anything wahbabi in it. It is a research.

I can read arabic, why i said that the replies didnt answer my questions?

It seems what the later Hanafi ulama referred and hold on to is what Imaam Muhammad mentioned in his riwaaya of the Muwatta of Imam Maalik where in he narrated a hadith that when the Prophet sat in salaah he would clasp all of his fingers and point with his indexfinger, he stated that in a chapter about playing with pebbles in salaah:

Maalik has informed that Muslim ibn Abi Maryam informed from Ali ibn Abdur Rahmaan al-Muawiy that he said, ‘Abdullah ibn Umar [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] saw me whilst I was playing with pebbles in Salaat. When I turned (after completing my Salaat), he prevented me saying ‘do as Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] did.’ I asked, ‘what was Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] ‘s practice?’ he said, ‘When Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] sat in Salaat, he placed his right hand on his right thigh and he clasped all his fingers and pointed with the finger next to the thumb, i.e. index finger and he placed his left hand on his left thigh.

Imaam Muhammad [ra] said, ‘We adopt the practice of Nabi [sallallaahu alayhi wasallam] and this is the view of Imaam Abu Hanifa [ra]’

The points of objections are:

1) The hadith states "clasped all his fingers and pointed with the finger" yet the ulamaa narrates that to Imaam Muhammad a ring is to be formed with the thumb and middlefinger.

2) There is no indication in the hadith or from Imaam Muhammad's view that the finger should be raised when saying "La ilaaha" and lowered after having said "ill Allaah".

Likewise the later ulamaa narrated it from Abu Yusuf from a non-existant work called al-Amaali without any details.

The first person to mention that the finger is to be raised when saying "La ilaaha" and lowered after having said "ill Allaah" is attributed to al-Halwaani. But where did al-Halwaani said this, and what are the further details of holding the fingers?

Likewise it seems the first person to mention that a ring should be formed is attributed to Abu Jafaar al-Hinduwaani. But where did al-Hinduwaani said this? And did he also said to raise it when saying "La ilaaha" and lower it having said "ill Allaah"?

Also the book Bahaar-e Shariat mentions that when you say "ill Allaah" all the fingers must be out stretched flat again, and this goes against the hadith in Tirmidhi and Abu Yaala wherein it is mentioned that the Prophet was saying "Ya muqallibal quluub thabbit qalbi alaa dinika" (and this must be after the shahadah and durood when making duaa) while his right hand was clasped in tashahhud.

To me it appears, that the position of the Hanafi ulamaa is puzzled together by the later ulamaa from various opinions merged together.

 

this is a contemporary wahabi work.

 

just curious. can you read arabic?

 

I just read this work:

أوجز العبارة في حكم الإشارة

• مؤلف: فهد بن عبد الرحمن المشعل

And it was beneficial.

 

Thanks for your reply, but none of the replies did answer my question.

I want to know which early Hanafi scholars did mention to point with the finger in tashahhud. What is the earliest source?

Also what is the earliest source that the finger should be raised when saying "Laa ilaaha" and then lowered when saying "ill Allaah" ?

 

download here.

 

this has been discussed earlier in 2008

https://sunniport.com/index.php?threads/raising-finger-in-the-tashahhud.3324/#post-12557

 

he read out the narrations about ishara in muslim, tirmidhi, abu dawud, bayhaqi in sunan, etc.

 

it is al-isbijabi [muhammad ibn ahmad]
"sabbaabah" = index finger. سَبَّابَة

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imam ibn abidin has written a risalah on this topic "raf' al-taraddud" / see rasayil ibn abidin, vol.1
among the many citations - he mentions imam muhammad, imam abu yusuf and imam muhammad attributing to imam abu hanifah.




raf' al-taraddud:






===
saghnaqi, nihayah:





badayiy al-sanayiy:




===

 

Can you summarize it, i dont know that language.

 

Very detailed explaination.

 

As salaamu alaykum,

I am investiging the issue of the indexfinger in the tashahhud according to the early Hanafi mutun works.

While reading the earliest mutun of the Hanafi madhab which do transmit the postitions of the Hanafi school and in particular Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad, i read that Imaam Tahawi explicitly mentioned in his Mukhtasar that: "one is NOT to make a sign with his finger in tashahhud".

Hence to Imaam Tahawi the position of Abu Hanifa and his two students is explicitly NOT to point during the tashahhud.

Having checked a early Sharh on this work by al-Jassas he agreed with Imaam Tahawi and justified it by citing a hadith about stillness in salaah.

Then i found a early Hanafi work called Nutuf al Fatawa by al-Sughdi and i saw that he listed among the forbidden acts in salaah: "To raise ones finger in tashahhud like the people of Hadith do".

Likewise i saw in a work by Bayhaqi called al-Khilaffiyaat about the differences between the Hanafis and Shafis that he mentioned that it is Makruh to Abu Hanifa to point with ones indexfinger in tashahhud.

Having checked the major early Mutun of the Hanafi school i saw that not any of them mentioned anything about this issue neither for or against it. They only mentioned that one places ones hands on thighs during tashahhud and nothing else. Why is this?

Then when i checked Sharh Mukhtasar al-Karkhi, by Imam Quduri i saw that he said in the chapter of Witr while mentioning a view that one is to raise ones indexfinger during the duaa of Qunuut, that it is the same with tashahhud.

I want to ask did any of the early Hanafi sources (not a later work that quoted another work or view) shed light on this issue about raising the indexfinger and how it is exactly raised?

I read that there is early Sharh on the Mukhtasar of Imaam Tahawi by al-Istijabi, did he shed some light on the issue?

Are there any early Hanafi sources wherein this issue is mentioned? Any early Shuruh on the early Mutun like Jami al Sagir, Jami al Kabir, Mukhtasar's of Tahawi, Quduri, Karkhi who mentioned this issue?

Was salaam.