We came to Abdullah bin Masud at his house, and he asked, "Have those people prayed behind you?"We replied, "No."He said, "Then stand and pray." He did not instruct us to make the call to prayer or the iqamah.We went to stand behind him, but he took us by the hands and placed one of us on his right and the other on his left.When he bowed, we placed our hands on our knees, but he struck our hands away, joined his palms together, and placed them between his thighs.After he finished praying, he said, "There will come over you rulers who will delay the prayer past its appointed time and squeeze it until only the briefest moment remains before sunset, like the time of the dead. When you see them doing this, pray the prayer at its proper time and treat your prayer with them as a voluntary one. When you are three, pray together. When you are more than that, let one of you lead. When one of you bows, let him spread his forearms on his thighs, lean forward, and join his palms together. It is as if I can see the spreading of the fingers of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ," and he showed them.In another narration, "It is as if I can see the spreading of the fingers of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ while he was bowing."
أتينا عبد الله بن مسعود في داره فقال: أصلى هؤلاء خلفكم؟ فقلنا: لا، قال: فقوموا فصلوا، فلم يأمرنا بأذان ولا إقامة، قال: وذهبنا لنقوم خلفه، فأخذ بأيدينا فجعل أحدنا عن يمينه، والآخر عن شماله، قال: فلما ركع وضعنا أيدينا على ركبنا، قال: فضرب أيدينا، وطبق بين كفيه، ثم أدخلهما بين فخذيه، قال: فلما صلى قال: إنه سيكون عليكم أمراء يؤخرون الصلاة عن ميقاتها، ويخنقونها إلى شرق الموتى، فإذا رأيتم قد فعلوا ذلك فصلوا الصلاة لميقاتها، واجعلوا صلاتكم معهم سبحة، وإذا كنتم ثلاثة فصلوا جميعا، وإذا كنتم أكثر من ذلك فليؤمكم أحدكم، وإذا ركع أحدكم فليفرش ذراعيه على فخذيه، وليجنا وليطبق بين كفيه، فكأني أنظر إلى اختلاف أصابع رسول الله ﷺ فأراهم. وفي رواية: فكأني أنظر إلى اختلاف أصابع رسول الله ﷺ وهو راكع.
Muslim narrated it in the book of Mosques (534), through several chains from Ibrahim Nakhai, from Aswad and Alqama, with the same wording. Nasai also narrated it (1031) through Asim bin Kulayb, from Abdul-Rahman bin Aswad, from Alqama, from Abdullah, who said, "The Messenger of Allah taught us the prayer. He stood and said the takbir, and when he wanted to bow, he pressed his hands flat together between his knees, then bowed." This reached Saad, and he said, "My brother has spoken the truth. We used to do this, then we were commanded to do this," meaning holding the knees. He then related the hadith of Musab bin Saad as mentioned before.This hadith shows that the practice of pressing the hands together in this manner was abrogated, and that the abrogation had not reached Ibn Masud and his companions, which is the hadith of Saad bin Waqqas and others, just as it had not reached him that when the imam has two men with him, they should stand behind him in a row.As for his saying, "yukhniqunaha" (with the noon vocalized with damma), it means they narrow its time and delay its performance.As for his saying, "sharaq al-mawta," Ibn Arabi said it carries two meanings. The first is that the sun at that time, which is the end of the day, remains for only a short while before it sets. The second is that it comes from their saying "sharaqa al-mayyitu bi-riqihi," meaning when the dying person is choking on his own saliva, indicating that only a little time remains before he dies. Nawawi mentioned this.