Seadet-i Ebediyye - Endless Bliss Third Fascicle

In case of a question such as, “Among the savants of the Hanafî
Madhhab, there are also those who said that the sign should be
made and who gave a fatwâ in agreement with this. Do we not
have the choice to follow any one of the fatwâs disagreeing with
one another?”
We would answer that when the disagreement between fatwâs
is in the manner of ‘permissible, not permissible, or halâl, harâm,’
it is essential to follow those fatwâs which say ‘not permissible or
harâm.’
(Kamâladdîn Muhammad bin ’Abd-ul-Wâhid Sivâsî) Ibni
Humâm ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’ says: “Seeing the variety of
hadîths disagreeing with one another on whether or not to raise
the finger, we have to follow the hadîths saying that the finger
should not be moved, since it is necessary to sit motionless in
namâz!” Any amount of surprise would be less than Ibnî Humâm
causes. In his book he says: “The majority of savants said that the
sign must not be made; this judgment of theirs is incompatible with
hadîths and with mind!” thus accusing the great Islamic savants of
ignorance, who were in the grade of ijtihâd and qiyâs. As a matter
of fact, qiyâs is among the zâhir and usûl teachings in the Hanafî
Madhhab and is the fourth of the adilla-i shar’iyya. How can one
ever be against ijtihâd? Seeing the great number of reports
disagreeing with one another, the same person says that the hadîth
about qullatayn in the chapter on kinds of clean water also is da’îf.
(Please see the ninth paragraph of the seventh chapter of the
fourth fascicle of Endless Bliss for ‘qullatayn’.
My wise and mature son, Muhammad Sa’îd, is now writing a
booklet about making the sign with the finger. When it is
completed I will, inshâ-Allah, send you a copy. I send my salâm
and prayers to those being with you.
[It is written in the hundred and twenty-sixth page of the
commentary to Shir’ât-ul-Islâm [1] that the book Hidâya says that
one must make the sign with one’s finger. Imâm-i Hulwânî
‘rahimahullah’ says so, too. It is also said that one must not make
the sign. The fatwâ also agrees with this. For, it is necessary to keep
motionless (during the standing positions and sitting postures as
[1] Shir’ât-ul-Islam was written by Muhammad bin Abî Bakr
‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’ (d. 573 [1178 A.D.]). Ya’qûb bin Sayyid
’Alî ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’Alî ‘rahmatullâhi ta’âlâ ’alaih’ (d. 931 [1525
A.D.], Bursa).
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