What is the ruling on praying behind an imam who has some errors in his recitation?
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Question:
We have an imam in our prayer whom we do not fault in any way, and he is our contemporary. However, when he recites Surat al-Fatihah, he reads the word al-sirat with a taa instead of a taa marbutah, and his tongue precedes him in doing so, despite our alerting him to it. He also makes some other errors; for example, he pronounces "wa-d-daalleen" without the shaddah on the daal, and some other words like this. Does that affect his prayer and our prayer behind him?
Answer:
He is able to correct that and rectify this deficiency, and it is obligatory for him to do so. His prayer is not valid except by correcting it, and prayer behind him is not valid in this case because he is negligent. Surat al-Fatihah must be recited in the correct manner with all its letters, all its shaddahs, all its vowel marks, and all its verses recited in the correct manner as much as possible. So whoever is able to correct his recitation, it is not permissible for him to pray in this state, and it is not permissible for him to be an imam. As for the one who is unable to do so because he has a lisp in his tongue and cannot do more than that, even if he learns, and this does not get corrected, then his prayer is valid for himself, and it is valid to pray with someone like him. But as for those who are not like him, who are more correct, it is not permissible for him to be an imam for them. Yes. May Allah bless you.
We have an imam in our prayer whom we do not fault in any way, and he is our contemporary. However, when he recites Surat al-Fatihah, he reads the word al-sirat with a taa instead of a taa marbutah, and his tongue precedes him in doing so, despite our alerting him to it. He also makes some other errors; for example, he pronounces "wa-d-daalleen" without the shaddah on the daal, and some other words like this. Does that affect his prayer and our prayer behind him?
Answer:
He is able to correct that and rectify this deficiency, and it is obligatory for him to do so. His prayer is not valid except by correcting it, and prayer behind him is not valid in this case because he is negligent. Surat al-Fatihah must be recited in the correct manner with all its letters, all its shaddahs, all its vowel marks, and all its verses recited in the correct manner as much as possible. So whoever is able to correct his recitation, it is not permissible for him to pray in this state, and it is not permissible for him to be an imam. As for the one who is unable to do so because he has a lisp in his tongue and cannot do more than that, even if he learns, and this does not get corrected, then his prayer is valid for himself, and it is valid to pray with someone like him. But as for those who are not like him, who are more correct, it is not permissible for him to be an imam for them. Yes. May Allah bless you.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، ماحكم الصلاة خلف إمام لديه بعض الأخطاء في قراءته؟ الشيخ صالح بن فوزان الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.
