The Imam Who Prostrated Before Bowing and the Ruling on His Prayer
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If the imam makes a mistake and prostrates before bowing, and the congregation says the takbir with him, but he does not know what he missed and becomes confused and does not know what to do, how should he be alerted? Should he be told to bow? And what is the ruling on his prayer?
The Shaykh:
The verse, keep the verse[Al-Ma'idah 5:1] or rather, may I say, Allah the Exalted said: [Al-Baqarah 2:43]. Alert him with the verse that mentions what he left out.
The questioner:
If someone told him to bow, does his prayer remain valid?
The Shaykh:
His prayer is not invalid, because this person is in the state of prayer, and also he is ignorant of the ruling, so his prayer is not invalid, if Allah wills. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. If the imam makes a mistake and prostrates before bowing, and the congregation says the takbir with him, but he does not know what he missed and becomes confused and does not know what to do, how should he be alerted? Should he be told to bow? And what is the ruling on his prayer?
The Shaykh:
The verse, keep the verse
O you who have
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَand bow with those who bow [in worship and obedience].
وَارْكَعُوا مَعَ الرَّاكِعِينَThe questioner:
If someone told him to bow, does his prayer remain valid?
The Shaykh:
His prayer is not invalid, because this person is in the state of prayer, and also he is ignorant of the ruling, so his prayer is not invalid, if Allah wills. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، 141/29 شرح زاد المستقنع/ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com (1:13:45)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.