Who is more deserving of leading the prayer: the one who shaves his beard or the one who memorizes the Qur'an?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The second question from the questioner: There are two men in a congregation. One of them is a memorizer of the Qur'an, but he shaves his beard. The other preserves his beard, but he has only memorized Juz 'Amma and a few short surahs. Which one is more deserving of leading the prayer?
Answer:
Rather, the one who is more deserving is the one who has preserved his beard and followed the Sunnah. It is sufficient for him to have memorized some surahs of the Qur'an along with Surat al-Fatihah, praise be to Allah, provided he has knowledge of his religion. The one who has memorized the Qur'an but disobeys Allah is not the one who is more deserving.
The second question from the questioner: There are two men in a congregation. One of them is a memorizer of the Qur'an, but he shaves his beard. The other preserves his beard, but he has only memorized Juz 'Amma and a few short surahs. Which one is more deserving of leading the prayer?
Answer:
Rather, the one who is more deserving is the one who has preserved his beard and followed the Sunnah. It is sufficient for him to have memorized some surahs of the Qur'an along with Surat al-Fatihah, praise be to Allah, provided he has knowledge of his religion. The one who has memorized the Qur'an but disobeys Allah is not the one who is more deserving.
Source
فتاوى الحج - ١ - ١٤٠٥ هـ — archive.org (5:03)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.