The Ruling on Covering the Shoulders in Prayer
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. The questioner asks: Is it a condition to cover both shoulders in prayer, or is it sufficient to cover just one?
Answer:
According to Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him), and this is a unique position of his, it is necessary to cover one of the shoulders. It is not permissible for any of you to pray in a single garment if nothing of it is on his shoulder. As for the majority, they do not consider this obligatory. The important point is that he covers what is between the navel and the knee; this is sufficient according to the majority.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. The questioner asks: Is it a condition to cover both shoulders in prayer, or is it sufficient to cover just one?
Answer:
According to Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him), and this is a unique position of his, it is necessary to cover one of the shoulders. It is not permissible for any of you to pray in a single garment if nothing of it is on his shoulder. As for the majority, they do not consider this obligatory. The important point is that he covers what is between the navel and the knee; this is sufficient according to the majority.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [3436/2492] حكم ستر العاتقين في الصلاة - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.