Is It Permissible to Keep Track of the Number of Units by Folding One’s Fingers during the Prayer?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

When standing in the prayer, a person holds his hands as normal but folds the fingers on one of his hands to indicate the number 1, 2, 3, or 4, in order to remind himself what unit of the prayer he’s in.

Is there anything disliked with this (he finds this more helpful than the fiqh rulings of making a judgment or building on the least number of units)?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is permissible to use your fingers to keep track of the number of units of the prayer. However, while keeping their fingers in the proper Sunna position, they will push their fingers into their arm/hand. [Tahtawi/Shurunbulali, Hashiyat Maraqi al-Falah]

This is the preferred method as it does not entail additional movements (‘abath)

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.