Conducting Salah - Standing > Additional Considerations for Standing
Summary of Evidences [ Al-Quran: 0, Hadith: 0 ]
Prayer Wearing Shoes and the command to do so
- "He used to stand (in prayer) bare-footed sometimes and wearing shoes sometimes."28
- He allowed this for his ummah, saying: When one of you prays, he should wear his shoes or take them off and put them between his feet, and not harm others with them.29
- He encouraged prayer wearing them sometimes, saying: Be different from the Jews, for they do not pray in their shoes nor in their khuffs (leather socks).30
- Occasionally he would remove them from his feet while in prayer and then continue his prayer, as Abu Sa'eed al-Khudri has said:
- "The Messenger of Allaah (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam) prayed with us one day. Whilst he was engaged in the prayer he took off his shoes and placed them on his left. When the people saw this, they took off their shoes. When he finished his prayer he said, Why did you take your shoes off? They said, 'We saw you taking your shoes off, so we took our shoes off.' He said, Verily Jibreel came to me and informed me that there was dirt - or he said: something harmful - (in another narration: filth)on my shoes, so I took them off.
Therefore, when one of you goes to the mosque, he should look at his shoes: if he sees in them dirt - or he said: something harmful - (in another narration: filth) he should wipe them and pray in them.31
- "When he removed them, he would place them on his left"32 and he would also say: When one of you prays, he should not place his shoes on his right nor on his left, where they will be on someone else's right, except if there is no one on his left, but he should place them between his feet.33
The Sutrah, and the Obligation to have one
- "The prophet (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam) used to stand near to the sutrah, so that there was (a distance of) three cubits between him and the wall"37 and "between the place of his prostration and the wall, (there was) enough space for a sheep to pass."38
- He used to say: "Do not pray except towards a sutrah, and do not let anyone pass in front of you, but if someone continues (to try to pass) then fight him, for he has a companion (i.e. a shaytaan) with him."39
- He would also say: "When one of you prays towards a sutrah, he should get close to it so that Shaytaan cannot break his prayer."40
- Sometimes "he would seek to pray at the pillar which was in his mosque."41
- "When he prayed [in an open space where there was nothing to use as sutrah] he would plant a spear in the ground in front of him and pray towards it with the people behind him"42;
- Sometimes "he would to set his mount sideways and pray towards it"43 but this is not the same as prayer in the resting-place of camels44, which "he forbade"45, and sometimes "he would take his saddle; set it lengthways and pray towards its end."46
- He would say: When one of you places in front of him something such as the stick on the end of a saddle, he should pray and not mind anyone who passes beyond it.47
- Once "he prayed towards a tree"48 and sometimes "he would pray towards the bed on which 'Aa'ishah (radi Allaahu anhaa) was lying [under her sheet]."49
- He (sallallaahu 'alaihi wa sallam), would not let anything pass between him and his sutrah, hence once "he was praying, when a sheep came running in front of him, so he raced it until he pressed his belly against the wall [and it passed behind him]."50
- Also, once "while praying an obligatory prayer, he clenched his fist (during it), so when he had finished, the people said: 'O Messenger of Allaah, did something happen during the prayer?' He said: No, except that the devil wanted to pass in front of me, so I strangled him until I could feel the coldness of his tongue on my hand By Allaah! Had my brother Sulaimaan not beaten me to it51, I would have tied him (the devil) to one of the pillars of the mosque so that the children of Madinah
- could walk round him. [So whoever can prevent something intervening between him and the qiblah, he must do so]."52
- He also used to say: When one of you prays towards something which is a sutrah between him and the people and someone intends to cross in front of him, then he should push him in the throat [and repel, as much as he can], (in one narration: he should stop him, twice) but if he refuses (to not pass) then he should fight him, for verily he is a devil.53
- He also used to say: If the person who passed in front of someone praying knew (the sin) on him, it would be better for him to wait forty than to pass in front. (Abu an-Nadr said, "I do not remember exactly whether he said forty days, months or years.").54