The ruling on reciting the Qur'an in congregation before the Friday prayer
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah reward you, some people in our mosques outside this country have adopted the practice of having one person recite the Qur'an before the Friday prayer while the others listen to him. They claim that some scholars have permitted this, so they wanted clarification from you.
Answer:
This was not reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), nor from any of his Companions. I mean, I have searched among the Companions and the Rightly Guided Caliphs for any report that they would listen to a reciter before the Friday prayer. What is reported is that they would gather and wait for the Friday prayer, and they would recite the Qur'an, each person reciting for himself, each one reciting the Qur'an. They did not listen to a single reciter. Therefore, this practice is considered a bid'ah (religious innovation). It also deprives people of reciting the Qur'an and deprives them of the voluntary prayer. It disturbs them. This is not from the guidance of the Salaf (the earliest generations).
So this is not from the guidance of the Salaf. Whoever issued a fatwa (a scholarly legal ruling) on this is required to provide evidence. The issue is not about the existence of the fatwa, but about the evidence. If someone issues a ruling on something, he is required to provide evidence. If he does not provide evidence, then his fatwa is considered incorrect.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah reward you, some people in our mosques outside this country have adopted the practice of having one person recite the Qur'an before the Friday prayer while the others listen to him. They claim that some scholars have permitted this, so they wanted clarification from you.
Answer:
This was not reported from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), nor from any of his Companions. I mean, I have searched among the Companions and the Rightly Guided Caliphs for any report that they would listen to a reciter before the Friday prayer. What is reported is that they would gather and wait for the Friday prayer, and they would recite the Qur'an, each person reciting for himself, each one reciting the Qur'an. They did not listen to a single reciter. Therefore, this practice is considered a bid'ah (religious innovation). It also deprives people of reciting the Qur'an and deprives them of the voluntary prayer. It disturbs them. This is not from the guidance of the Salaf (the earliest generations).
So this is not from the guidance of the Salaf. Whoever issued a fatwa (a scholarly legal ruling) on this is required to provide evidence. The issue is not about the existence of the fatwa, but about the evidence. If someone issues a ruling on something, he is required to provide evidence. If he does not provide evidence, then his fatwa is considered incorrect.
Source
شرح لمعة الاعتقاد [ صالح الفوزان ]، بداية من قوله : وقال - تعالى - : { كهيعص } — islamhouse.com (1:06:31)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.