Answered by Shaykh Abdurrahman ibn Yusuf Mangera
Being a Hanafi, I have always prayed according to the Hanafi way. But I have a question which I think needs clarification. Imam Abu Hanfia stated that if a better opinion was found which contradicted his opinion, then we should adopt that opinion. So according to the hadiths from Sahih Bukhari, we are meant to pray with our hands placed on our chests and raise our hands on every takbeer. So why do we not do this in the Hanafi madhab? Also, when did this change of prayer come about? At the time of RasulAllah pbuh last khutba, where he mentioned that ”…Today I have perfected your religion..” does this mean that the way Hanafi’s pray, was established at that time or after it? If it was established at that time, then how comes out of all of the thousands of Sahaba at the time, we only have a few evidences for the Hanafi way on performing Salah.
Assalamu alaykum
The statement you have quoted from Imam Abu Hanifa was related to have been said by him to his students who were of high caliber in the Islamic sciences. It does not apply to us since the majority of us have no way of discerning and correlating between the various verses and hadiths on any given subject in order to extract a ruling for ourselves. Please read the book Fiqh al-Imam” Key Proofs in hanafi Fiqh (available from http://www.al-rashad.com/books/fiqh.htm) which deals with many of these issues and discusses the issues of where to place the hands and raising them at different instances in the prayer.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalam
Abdurrahman Ibn Yusuf