Clicking fingers in Salaat

Those acts which are related to Salaat like making ablution or going to the mosque after making ablution or waiting in the mosque for Salaat or supplicating after Salaat or sitting on the prayer mat after Salaat, all these are related to Salaat and are in the same league as Salaat itself.  As long as a person is performing all these acts, it is as if that person is offering Salaat itself.  There is a Hadith in Sunan Abu Dawood:

 

Translation:  It is narrated on the authority of Hadhrat Abu Thumama Hannat (May Allah be well pleased with him) that he met with Hadhrat Ka’ab bin Ajra as he was going to the mosque.  They met each other.  He says that when Hadhrat Ka’ab met me, I had put the fingers of one hand into another like a web.  He stopped from this and said that the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: When anyone of you makes ablution (i.e. performs Wudhu) and performs it nicely and then starts with the intention of going to a mosque, then he should not make a web with his hands as he is in Salaat.

 

This Hadith shows that the acts related to Salaat are also a part of Salaat and the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) has prohibited from clicking fingers in Salaat.

 

Translation:  It is narrated on the authority of Hadhrat ‘Ali (May Allah be well pleased with him) that the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: You should not click your fingers when you are in Salaat.  (Sunan Ibn Majah, Pg No. 68, Hadith No: 955)

 

Thus, while supplicating, fingers should not be clicked.  Whilesupplicating, one's state should be of extreme humility and submissiveness.

 

If outside of Salaat, fingers are clicked for relief or for some other purpose, then there is no harm in it.  However, clicking them without any reason, just as play, is Undesirable (Makruh).  It is the mark of a Muslim not to do a thing, which has no benefit.  There is a Hadith in Jame' Tirmidhi:

 

Translation:  It is narrated on the authority of Hadhrat Abu Hurairah (May Allah be well pleased with him) that the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) said: The best Muslim is the one who abandons useless things.  (Jame' Tirmidhi, Abwab Uz Zuhud, Hadith No: 2239)

 

If the joints make a clicking sound because of weakness of the human body, then this is not Undesirable (Makruh), as this is a case of compulsion.  The person offering the Salaat does not intend this.  Clicking fingers deliberately in Salaat is Abhorrent (Makruh Tahrimi).  As mentioned in Radd Ul Muhtaar, Vol. 1.

 

Even generally unnecessarily clicking fingers is not good and is harmful from the medical point of view also.