The ruling on taking young children to the mosque
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
The questioner says: My father takes his young grandchildren to the mosque. Some are boys and some are girls, none of them older than five years. These children move around in the mosque and pass between the people praying during the prayer, which causes disturbance to the worshippers. However, because my father is a tribal shaykh, the worshippers did not object to him or complain about him out of respect for him. This led me to advise my father after I had sought a fatwa from one of the shaykhs and informed my father that he bears the sin of the worshippers losing their khushu' (humility) due to the children's disturbance and interrupting the prayer. He did not accept this and said that children do not interrupt the prayer.
Answer:
Even if the worshippers forgive him, Allah does not forgive him (Glorified and Exalted is He). This is a right of Allah, and it is not permissible for him to take along children whose prayer is not valid before the age of seven, who are being bad to the mosque, except in the case where he fears for them. If he fears for them, he takes them with him, but he controls them and does not leave them to harm people and be bad to the mosque, on two conditions: first, that he needs to take them because of his fear for them; second, that he controls them from causing harm.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
The questioner says: My father takes his young grandchildren to the mosque. Some are boys and some are girls, none of them older than five years. These children move around in the mosque and pass between the people praying during the prayer, which causes disturbance to the worshippers. However, because my father is a tribal shaykh, the worshippers did not object to him or complain about him out of respect for him. This led me to advise my father after I had sought a fatwa from one of the shaykhs and informed my father that he bears the sin of the worshippers losing their khushu' (humility) due to the children's disturbance and interrupting the prayer. He did not accept this and said that children do not interrupt the prayer.
Answer:
Even if the worshippers forgive him, Allah does not forgive him (Glorified and Exalted is He). This is a right of Allah, and it is not permissible for him to take along children whose prayer is not valid before the age of seven, who are being bad to the mosque, except in the case where he fears for them. If he fears for them, he takes them with him, but he controls them and does not leave them to harm people and be bad to the mosque, on two conditions: first, that he needs to take them because of his fear for them; second, that he controls them from causing harm.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you.
Source
شرح كتاب الكبائر للإمام محمد بن عبد الوهاب، بداية من باب تشييع الفاحشة في المؤمنين — islamhouse.com (1:14:03)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.