Islam Museum Islam Museum islam.museum
Search ⌕ ARENUR
Accessibility
Text size 100%

Saved on this device only — nothing is sent anywhere.

Inhina' (bending, in fiqh: prayer, honour and compulsion)

الانحناء

Inhina' is bending from straightness, and includes bowing in prayer, prostration and gesturing. 1 Bending in honour of anyone but God is forbidden by agreement, and obligatory bending is the bow in prayer. 23

Depth

At a glance

Era
The Prophetic Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
Review
Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it

Worship and the pillars

Definition

Inhina' in the lexical sense is bending and turning from straightness; one says a man is bent by age when time has bent him. 1 It is related to bowing (ruku'), prostration (sujud) and gesturing (iyma'), which are kinds of bending in prayer or indications by the head, hand or eye. 1

Ruling

  • Lawful bending: such as that in daily work. 2
  • Obligatory bending: bowing in prayer, for one able to do it, to the point where the hands reach the knees of a man of medium height, by the majority. 2
  • Forbidden bending in honour of a person, an animal or an object. Bending before great men and rulers in honour is forbidden by agreement, since bending is only for God, and a hadith records a man asking whether he may bend to his friend on meeting him. 23
  • Bending as an imitation of unbelievers without honour is disliked, since it resembles the practice of the Magians. 23
  • Bending under compulsion before a ruler is governed by the rules of compulsion. 3
  • A slight bending while standing does not spoil the standing for most jurists; the jurists differ on following a hunchback. 3

People and things also explored

The ruling on one who abandons prayer· Ada' (performance of an obligation within its time)· Adhan (the call to prayer: its ruling, wording, conditions, recommended features and the muezzin)· Bone (adhm): purity, use and retaliation· The adornment of desires and the goods of this world· The people of the bench (ahl al-suffa)· The earth made a place of prayer and purity· Spending in the way of God (infaq)

Sources

  1. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.3461
  2. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.3462
  3. al-Mawsu'a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya, Noor-Book copy (file named v3) , p.3463
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Inhina' (bending, in fiqh: prayer, honour and compulsion)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/inhina/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-23.

Improve this page on GitHub · Report an error · JSON

Wing

Ideas

Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words. Related

The ruling on one who abandons prayer

Al-Sallabi quotes Ali: whoever does not pray is an unbeliever. He then reports from al-Nawawi the dispute over one who neglects prayer while believing it obligatory: the majority (Malik, al-Shafi'i) hold him a sinner to be asked to repent, others hold him an unbeliever, a view ascribed to Ali; Abu Hanifa and the Kufans hold him not an unbeliever but to be disciplined.