Are patients in a psychiatric hospital obligated to pray, and should we command them to do so?
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Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. This person says he is training in a hospital for mental illnesses. He says there are patients in this hospital. Are they obligated to pray? And should we command them to do so?
Answer:
Yes, if they have awareness, prayer is obligatory for them. It is obligatory for you to command them to do so and to teach them. As for if they do not have awareness, prayer is not required of them. He does not know about anything. There is no prayer required of him. As for the one who perceives matters, knows the harmful from the beneficial, and knows how to distinguish between things, prayer is obligatory for him. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. This person says he is training in a hospital for mental illnesses. He says there are patients in this hospital. Are they obligated to pray? And should we command them to do so?
Answer:
Yes, if they have awareness, prayer is obligatory for them. It is obligatory for you to command them to do so and to teach them. As for if they do not have awareness, prayer is not required of them. He does not know about anything. There is no prayer required of him. As for the one who perceives matters, knows the harmful from the beneficial, and knows how to distinguish between things, prayer is obligatory for him. Yes.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [387 -3022] هل المرضى في مستشفى الأمراض النفسية مكلفون بالصلاة، وهل نأمرهم بذلك؟ -الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.