Aswad narrates: I and Alqamah went to the service of Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him). He asked us: Have those people performed the prayer? We replied: No. So he said: You both stand and perform the prayer. We stood up to pray behind him. He placed one of us on his right side and the other on his left side. Then he performed the prayer without giving the adhan or the iqamah. During the prayer, when he went into ruku', he interlaced his fingers and placed them between his two knees. When he had completed the prayer, he mentioned this matter. He said: I have seen the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) perform the prayer in this manner. He said: "O people! Soon there will be rulers appointed over you who will neglect the prayer; they will strangle it as a dying person is strangled. Whoever among you finds this situation, let him perform the prayer at its appointed time, and make his prayer with those people a voluntary one." (Imam Ibn Hibban, may Allah have mercy on him, says:) Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) used to interlace his fingers during ruku', and he held the opinion that he had seen the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) do so. However, from the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) until our present day, all Muslims are agreed that this act was in the early days of Islam, and then the command to place both hands on the knees during ruku' abrogated it. So, how could such a thing remain hidden from a person of the stature of Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him), with all his knowledge, virtue, asceticism, piety, his abundant practice of religious rulings, and his praying in the first row behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), as he was among the wise and experienced? Despite all this, how could something that is abrogated by the consensus of all Muslims remain hidden from him? Or perhaps he saw it and then forgot it. So it is also possible that, just as interlacing the fingers during ruku' was hidden from him, the act of raising the hands at the time of ruku' and when rising from ruku' by the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was also hidden from him, or he saw it and then forgot it.