Can I Make up Supplications and Can I Raise My Hands in Prayer?

Answered by Shaykh Jamir Meah

Question: Assalamu alaykum

As a Hanafi can I make supplications in prayer which are not found in Hadiths and can I raise my haise in prayer in order to follow the sunna of other schools?

Answer: Wa’alaikum assalam.

I hope this finds you in the best of states. Jazakum Allah khayr for your question. May Allah increase you in your striving to be diligent in the religion.

Supplicating in a language other than Arabic during the Prayer

One can make any du’a whether it is from Qu’ran or Sunna or not, though it is best to say those that are found in these two sources. There are two conditions to this,

1. The du’a must be in Arabic

2. The du’a, even in Arabic, must be of a nature which is not normally possible to ask other humans for.

For more details and examples on this, please refer to this Hanafi answer here.

Raising one’s Hands during a Hanafi prayer with the intention to practice the sunnah from the other madhab

It would be advisable to not mix various acts of prayer from different schools, as each school has its valid proofs and arguments for what constitutes as sunna acts or not. In regards the raising of the hands when one goes into and returns from ruku, while it is a sunna in the Shafi’i school, it is disliked (makrouh) in the Hanafi school, though does not nullify the prayer [Maraqi al Falah]. As such there is a contradiction in raising the hands as a Hanafi.

May Allah grant you tawfiq and every good.

Warmest salams,
[Shaykh] Jamir Meah

Shaykh Jamir Meah grew up in Hampstead, London. In 2007, he traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he spent nine years studying the Islamic sciences on a one-to-one basis under the foremost scholars of the Ribaat, Tarim, with a main specialization and focus on Shafi’i fiqh. In early 2016, he moved to Amman, Jordan, where he continues advanced studies in a range of Islamic sciences, as well as teaching. Jamir is a qualified homeopath.