The Ruling on Reserving a Seat in a Lesson for an Absent Person
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it permissible for a person to reserve a front seat for his brother in the lesson before he arrives?
Answer:
If he is about to arrive, and you know he is about to arrive and is close by, there is no harm. But if you do not know whether he will come or not, and you say, "I will reserve it for him; if he comes, he will find the seat," then it is not permissible for you to do so. Yes.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, is it permissible for a person to reserve a front seat for his brother in the lesson before he arrives?
Answer:
If he is about to arrive, and you know he is about to arrive and is close by, there is no harm. But if you do not know whether he will come or not, and you say, "I will reserve it for him; if he comes, he will find the seat," then it is not permissible for you to do so. Yes.
Source
شرح رسالة العبودية لشيخ الإسلام ابن تيمية، بداية من قوله : ويتمسكون بالمتشابه من كلام المشايخ كما فعلت النصارى — islamhouse.com (55:24)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.