Those who mentioned raising the hands only at the opening

(a) It is narrated from Sayyiduna al-Bara' bin Azib (may Allah be pleased with him): "I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): when he began the prayer, he raised his hands." Sufyan says: Then I came to Kufah and met (my teacher) Yazid. I heard him narrating this same hadith, and he also added to it: then he did not do this (raising the hands) again in the rest of the prayer. I thought that they had prompted him with it. Sufyan says: I first heard Yazid narrate this hadith in this way; then later he added to it the words 'thumma la ya'ud' (then he did not repeat it).
(b) Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) says: Sufyan (may Allah have mercy on him) held that Yazid erred in this hadith, saying that it was as though this phrase had been prompted to him, that is, suggested to him, and he took up the prompting; and Sufyan did not credit Yazid with a good memory.
(c) This hadith is likewise reported through another chain, and in it the words 'thumma la ya'ud' (then he did not repeat it) are not found.
(d) Sufyan says: When I came to Kufah I heard him narrating this hadith, and in it he was saying 'thumma la ya'ud' (then he did not repeat it). I realised that they had taught it to him.
(e) And my companions (those of our school) told me that Yazid's memory had deteriorated, or they used the words 'qad sa'a' (it has become poor).
(f) Al-Humaydi says: To whoever takes this hadith as evidence, we will say only this much: this narration was narrated by Yazid, and Yazid keeps adding.

(a) Uthman bin Sa'id al-Darimi (may Allah have mercy on him) says: I asked Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal (may Allah have mercy on him) about this hadith, and he said: "This hadith is not authentic."
(b) He also said: I heard Yahya bin Ma'in (may Allah have mercy on him) declare Yazid bin Abi Ziyad da'if (weak).
(b) Abu Sa'id al-Darimi (may Allah have mercy on him) says: The statement of Sufyan bin Uyaynah (may Allah have mercy on him), 'innahum laqqanuhu hadhihi al-kalimah' (they taught him this phrase), is supported by the fact that Sufyan al-Thawri, Zuhayr bin Mu'awiyah, Hushaym and other scholars besides them did not bring this phrase; it was brought only by those who heard from him later on.
(c) The Shaykh (may Allah have mercy on him) says: The position of these scholars is also confirmed by the following.

(a) It is narrated from al-Bara' bin Azib (may Allah be pleased with him): I saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). When he (peace and blessings be upon him) began the prayer he raised his hands, and also when he intended to bow, and when he raised his head from the bowing he also raised his hands.
Sufyan says: When I came to Kufah I heard this same hadith (from Yazid), and he said: When he began the prayer he would raise both hands (he would do raf' al-yadayn); then he would not do it again. So I understood that the people of Kufah had taught it to him.
(b) The Shaykh says that this hadith was narrated by Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman bin Abi Layla from his brother Isa, from Abd al-Rahman bin Abi Layla, from al-Bara' bin Azib (may Allah be pleased with him), and in it too it says that he would not do it again.
Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman bin Abi Layla's hadith is not taken as evidence, and according to the experts in hadith he is in a worse state than Yazid bin Abi Ziyad. Uthman bin Sa'id al-Darimi mentioned a section on the weakness of the hadith of Yazid bin Abi Ziyad, then said: No one stronger than Yazid narrated this from Abd al-Rahman bin Abi Layla.

It is narrated from Alqamah (may Allah have mercy on him) that Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: I will certainly lead you in prayer the way the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed. Then he led the prayer, and in it he raised his hands only once (at the beginning).

It is narrated from Alqamah that Sayyiduna Abdullah (bin Mas'ud, may Allah be pleased with him) said: "The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) taught us the prayer. He said the takbir and raised his hands. Then, when he bowed, he joined both his hands together and let them hang between his knees." Alqamah says: When this reached Sayyiduna Sa'd (may Allah be pleased with him), he said: "My brother has spoken the truth. Formerly we too used to do it this way; then we were commanded to place the hands on the knees (that is, to grip them firmly from above)."
The Shaykh says: If the hadith is as Abdullah bin Idris (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated it, then it does not mention raising the hands again; and if it is as al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) narrated it, then the hadith of Ibn Idris (may Allah have mercy on him) shows that this practice belonged to the early period of Islam, just as letting the hands hang between the knees belonged to the early period of Islam. Then after that the practices were laid down and the Shari'ah advanced in stages (that is, rulings changed gradually). Those who were to memorise them memorised them and passed them on, and now acting upon them has become obligatory.

Sufyan bin Abd al-Malik (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I heard Abdullah bin al-Mubarak (may Allah have mercy on him) say: In my view, the hadith of Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that "the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) raised his hands only the first time and then did not do so again" is not established, whereas the hadith of raising the hands is established with me; Ubaydullah, Malik, Ma'mar and Ibn Abi Hafsah narrated it from al-Zuhri, he from Salim, from Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both), and Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) narrates it from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him); and I consider there to be latitude in it. Then Abdullah bin al-Mubarak (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Because of the abundance of the hadiths and the soundness of their chains, this is my view; it is as though I am looking at the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) raising his hands in prayer.

It is narrated from Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that he said: I prayed behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), Sayyiduna Abu Bakr al-Siddiq and Sayyiduna Umar al-Faruq (may Allah be pleased with them both), and all of them raised their hands only when beginning the prayer.
Only Muhammad bin Jabir narrated it from Hammad from Ibrahim, and he was da'if (weak); others besides Hammad narrate it from Ibrahim from Abdullah in mursal form, as his own practice, not attributed to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and that is correct. Hammad bin Salamah likewise narrated it from Hammad bin Abi Sulayman, from Ibrahim, from Ibn Mas'ud, mursal and mawquf.
It is narrated from Sayyiduna Ali bin Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) that he used to raise his hands in prayer only at the first takbir, and then would not do anything of the kind again (that is, he did not raise his hands afterwards).

(a) This report has also been narrated through another chain. Uthman al-Darimi said: This has been narrated from Ali through this flimsy route.
(b) Through another chain it is narrated from Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) that he saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) "raising his hands when going into bowing and after raising his head from bowing."
It cannot be supposed of Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) that he would prefer his own practice over the practice of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). However, Abu Bakr al-Nahshali is not one whose narration is used as proof, or by whom a sunnah is established that no one else has brought.
Al-Za'farani said that Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said in his earlier position (al-qawl al-qadim): The reports from Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) and Sayyiduna Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that both of them raised their hands only at the beginning of the prayer and not otherwise are not established.
Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said: This hadith is narrated only by Asim bin Kulayb from his father, from Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him). He took this narration, but left the narration that Asim took from his father, from Sayyiduna Wa'il bin Hujr (may Allah be pleased with him), namely that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) "raised his hands," just as Sayyiduna Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) narrated. And even if this report were established from Sayyiduna Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) and Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), there could be the uncertainty that he saw them only once and they did not attend to raising the hands.
If someone were to say that the memory of this escaped them and Sayyiduna Ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) retained it, that could serve as proof for him.

It is narrated from Husayn bin Abd al-Rahman that we came to Ibrahim, and Amr bin Murrah related to him: We prayed in the mosque of the Hadramis, and Alqamah bin Wa'il narrated to me from his father that he saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) raise both his hands (that is, perform raf' al-yadayn) when beginning the prayer, and when he bowed he also raised his hands. Ibrahim said: I do not think (suppose) that Alqamah's father (Wa'il) saw the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) on any day other than that day, so he memorised that, while Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with him) did not retain it from him. Then Ibrahim said: Raising the hands is only at the beginning of the prayer.
(b) Abu Bakr bin Ishaq al-Faqih said: This is a defect not worth listening to, because raising the hands is established from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), then from the Rightly Guided Caliphs (may Allah be pleased with them), then from the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) and the Successors as well. And the forgetfulness of Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) is not only about raising the hands, which the other Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) saw the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) do; rather, Ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) forgot many other things besides. For example, he forgot something from the Qur'an about which the Muslims have never differed, namely the Mu'awwidhatayn. Likewise Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) fell into forgetfulness regarding something all the scholars agree was abrogated and abandoned, namely tatbiq, and regarding how two men should stand behind the imam; he also forgot, in a matter on which the scholars have no disagreement, that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed the morning prayer on the day of Eid al-Adha at its proper time. Likewise he forgot how the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) combined (the prayers) at Arafah. He also forgot the agreed matter that in prostration in prayer the elbows and forearms are kept off the ground, and he forgot how the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) used to recite "And (by) He who created the male and the female" [Surah al-Layl: 3]. And since it is correct of Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) that he forgot things like this in prayer, it is possible that he forgot raising the hands as well.

Rabi' bin Sulayman (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I asked Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him): What is the meaning of raising the hands at the time of bowing? He replied: The same meaning that raising them at the beginning of the prayer has is what is intended by it.
Then he said: In it is an expression of the greatness of Allah and the following of the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and there is also the hope of reward from Allah; and it is like raising the hands on Safa and Marwah.

Waki' (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I prayed in the mosque of Kufah, and I saw the great Imam Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him) standing in prayer, but he was not raising his hands, while Abdullah bin al-Mubarak (may Allah have mercy on him) was praying beside him. Whenever Abdullah (may Allah have mercy on him) bowed and raised his head from bowing he raised his hands, and Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him) did not. When they had finished the prayer, Imam Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him) said to Abdullah (may Allah have mercy on him): "O Abu Abd al-Rahman! I see you raise your hands so much, as though you are about to fly." Abdullah bin al-Mubarak (may Allah have mercy on him) replied: "O Abu Hanifah! I saw you raise your hands at the beginning of the prayer; did you want to fly at that moment?" Hearing this, Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him) fell silent. Waki' (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I have never seen a readier reply from anyone than the reply of Abdullah (may Allah have mercy on him) to Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him).

Sulayman bin Dawud al-Shadhakuni (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I heard Sufyan bin Uyaynah (may Allah have mercy on him) say: Imam al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) and Sufyan al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) met at Mina, and al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said to al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him): Why do you not raise your hands when going down into bowing and when rising from it? Al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Yazid bin Abi Ziyad narrated to us. Imam al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I narrate to you from al-Zuhri, from Salim, from his father, from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and you set against me the hadith of Yazid bin Abi Ziyad, when Yazid is a weak narrator and his hadith contradicts the Sunnah? The narrator said: The face of Sufyan al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) turned red, so al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said: It seems you disliked what I said? Al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Yes! Al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) said: Stand with us at the place (al-Maqam), and let us invoke Allah's curse upon one another as to which of us is on the truth. The narrator said: When al-Thawri (may Allah have mercy on him) saw that al-Awza'i (may Allah have mercy on him) had become angry, he began to smile.

Through another chain, a narration with the same meaning also exists.