Prayer Behind an Imam of Unknown Belief
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah preserve you. Sometimes we pray behind some of the expatriate communities, and we do not know about their belief. Is it obligatory for us to ask them about their belief, especially since we may be travelers?
Answer:
No, you are not required to ask if you find believers praying; pray, and your prayer will be valid, if Allah wills. Unless you know that this imam’s prayer is invalid because he is committing one of the nullifiers of Islam. If you know that, then [it is different]. But if you do not know, hold a good opinion of him, pray with the Muslims, and do not ask. The jurists’ texts are based on this.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah preserve you. Sometimes we pray behind some of the expatriate communities, and we do not know about their belief. Is it obligatory for us to ask them about their belief, especially since we may be travelers?
Answer:
No, you are not required to ask if you find believers praying; pray, and your prayer will be valid, if Allah wills. Unless you know that this imam’s prayer is invalid because he is committing one of the nullifiers of Islam. If you know that, then [it is different]. But if you do not know, hold a good opinion of him, pray with the Muslims, and do not ask. The jurists’ texts are based on this.
Source
شرح زاد المستقنع [21] — alfawzan.live (1:09:42)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.