Step 9 of 13
Stillness (tuma'ninah) in Each Position
Stillness means letting the body settle in each position, bowing, standing up from it, prostrating and sitting, until every limb is at rest, before moving on to the next.
This is the lesson at the heart of the hadith of the man who prayed badly. He went through every movement, yet the Prophet ﷺ sent him back three times saying, "Go back and pray, for you have not prayed," and then taught him to bow "until you are at ease", to prostrate "until you are at ease" and to sit "until you are at ease".
The least stillness is a moment of rest after the movement stops. A prayer said calmly is also easier to be present in.
The four schools differ on some details. Show them
Each school's ruling, with the schools that share it named together.
Is stillness in the bowing, prostration and the positions between them a pillar?
3 of 4 schools agree. Differing: Hanafi.
Show each school
- Obligatory (wajib), not a pillarHanafi
- Pillar (rukn)Maliki · Shafi'i · Hanbali
- Hanafi
- Abu Hanifah and Muhammad held stillness to be wajib, so leaving it makes the prayer deficient and it should be repeated; Abu Yusuf held it to be a pillar.
- Maliki
- Stillness is obligatory in the relied-upon view; some Malikis held it to be sunnah.
- Shafi'i
- It is a pillar, since the Prophet ﷺ told the man who omitted it that he had not prayed.
- Hanbali
- It is a pillar, since the Prophet ﷺ told the man who omitted it that he had not prayed.
- Sahih al-Bukhari 757 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih al-Bukhari 793 Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 397Sahih · in the two Sahihs
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
The positions of the four schools are summarised from their standard references and are pending review by a qualified scholar. Follow the school you were taught, and for your own situation, ask a scholar.
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