Joining Shoulders and Feet in Prayer Rows

By Shaykh Abu Asim Badrul Islam

There has been a growing tendency in recent times within some quarters of the Muslim Ummah to attempt to understand the hadiths of the beloved Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) without the proper prerequisite knowledge of fiqh and its principles. Movements have emerged, a fundamental part of whose methodology it is to take hadiths in their apparent and literal meanings, without attempting to understand the actual purpose of any hadith. The issue of how those in congregational prayer should stand is no exception. They have looked at the chapter in Sahih al-Bukhari entitled Bab ilsaqi ‘l-mankibi bi ‘l-mankibi wa ‘l-qadami bi ‘l-qadami fi ‘l-Saff (Chapter regarding the joining of shoulders to shoulders, and feet to feet in prayer rows) and the athar of Sayyiduna Nu’man ibn Bashir and that of Sayyiduna Anas (may Allah be pleased with them) (hadith: 725) and without even attempting to use their intellect to explore the various interpretations to which the wording is open, they seek to enforce on the Muslims the physical joining of shoulders and feet with one another when standing in the prayer row. The ‘ulama of the madhhabs (that is, the four established schools of Islamic law) have always maintained that this is not how these athar are to be understood.