Abstract:

The issue of raising the hands while going to and rising from rukū, which had been a source of dispute among the scholars since the early periods, was brought up again towards the middle of the 8th/14th century by Qwām al-Dīn Amīr Qātib al-Itkānī, one of the leading Hanafī jurists of the period in the Damascus and Egypt regions. The debate did not stop there and eventually evolved into a different issue on whether a Hanafī can follow the Shāfi‘ī imam or not. Itkānī defended the view, which he claimed to be the main view of the Hanafī madhhab, that if the hands are raised while going to and rising from the rukū, the prayer will be invalidated, and therefore a Hanafī cannot follow the Shāfi‘ī imam. He wrote a treatise containing his views and the evidence he relied on. The leading Hanafī jurists of the period, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qūnawī and the Shāfi‘ī jurist Tāqiyy al-Dīn al-Subkī wrote a treatise as a refutation to al-Itkānī. Among them, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qūnawī analyzed al-Itkānī’s views and the arguments he relied on and criticized them both naqlī (revealed knowledge) and aqlī (by reasoning). The author then presented the main opinion of the madhhab by referring to the authoritative and reliable Hanafī sources. In this study, we will analyze the author’s approach to the subject and then make a critical edition of his treatise.

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