Closing the Grand Mosque and Praying in a Small Prayer Hall
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
This is a questioner from al-Fudul who says: In our area, we built a grand mosque, and we plastered a small prayer hall for the daily prayers, while the large grand mosque is kept closed and is only opened for Jumu'ah, the festivals, and special occasions. Some students of knowledge criticized us, explaining that this amounts to leaving the larger area of the mosque unused. Is your practice correct, or is what we did the correct thing? We ask you for guidance.
Answer:
Your practice is correct if closing it protects it from being lost, or from having its contents taken, or from people entering who would mess with it, and you are praying in a mosque that accommodates you. You have a mosque for the prayer times that accommodates you, and the grand mosque is for Jumu'ah and the festivals. There is no harm in that. But if you need to hold lessons, or need to teach the Qur'an, and the prayer hall for the times is too small, open the grand mosque for that purpose. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you,
This is a questioner from al-Fudul who says: In our area, we built a grand mosque, and we plastered a small prayer hall for the daily prayers, while the large grand mosque is kept closed and is only opened for Jumu'ah, the festivals, and special occasions. Some students of knowledge criticized us, explaining that this amounts to leaving the larger area of the mosque unused. Is your practice correct, or is what we did the correct thing? We ask you for guidance.
Answer:
Your practice is correct if closing it protects it from being lost, or from having its contents taken, or from people entering who would mess with it, and you are praying in a mosque that accommodates you. You have a mosque for the prayer times that accommodates you, and the grand mosque is for Jumu'ah and the festivals. There is no harm in that. But if you need to hold lessons, or need to teach the Qur'an, and the prayer hall for the times is too small, open the grand mosque for that purpose. Yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you,
Source
شرح كتاب الكبائر للإمام محمد بن عبد الوهاب، تتمة باب ما جاء في الفتن — islamhouse.com (1:06:35)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.