What is the ruling if one of the imams leads the people in four rak'ahs of the tarawih prayer and then appoints another person to lead the people?

The questioner : If an imam of the mosques says, "By Allah, if this prayer had more delay in it, but reading, for example, ten or twenty verses is not enough for me. I want to pray four rak'ahs at the beginning of the night and appoint someone else to lead in my place, and I will pray at the end of the night. I and some of my brothers will pray four more, and I will lengthen them." This action is not customary for the people. Do you see how far they are from the Sunnah? If he delayed the entire prayer to the end of the night, no one would respond to him. So what is the wisdom in this action?

The Shaykh : Of course, his turning away from the congregation and praying with a second congregation or alone in his house is contrary to the Sunnah. Therefore, it is not befitting for there to be a split and for there to be two congregations in the mosque. Rather, he should try to be lenient with the congregation and lead them to the Sunnah gradually. Anything done suddenly does not succeed; it must be done with gentleness and tact.

The questioner : Regarding the action that Abu Malik performs in the mosque in the last ten nights of Ramadan, where they pray four rak'ahs at the beginning of the night and four at the end of the night, this is correct... because he cites evidence for this action, meaning he says, "Instead of doing this in the last ten nights, I want to do it from the beginning of Ramadan."

The Shaykh : Yes, but the congregation splits up, whereas your congregation is specific, meaning known. But from the beginning of Ramadan, the result differs. And the matter of a part that continues from the beginning of the month cannot be compared. For example, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in the last of the month ; this has a basis in this hadith. But that he starts establishing two prayers from the beginning of the month to the end, this is undoubtedly, at the very least, a phenomenon that was not present in the time of the Salaf nor in the time of the Khalaf. Rather, this split existed before 'Umar ibn al-Khattab gathered the Muslims behind a single imam, as is the Sunnah.

The questioner : And as long as some of the imams, meaning, they lengthen it a lot, meaning much more than the usual, the people are many.

The Shaykh : In any case, it returns to the wisdom of the imam, meaning we cannot set a limited boundary for it. First, he must be wise, he must know those he leads, and he must be eager to guide them and lead them to the right path, not that he leaves them to their own devices. And the hadith of 'Umar when he revived the prayer of standing and went out to check on the condition of the Muslims on the first night, and he saw them gathered behind a single imam, he said his famous words: "What a good innovation this is, and the one in which they sleep is better." He indicated that gathering in the prayer of standing at the beginning of the night after the tarawih prayer is a lesser, weaker matter, and that the better is to delay it to the end of the night, because this is what is known in the Sunnah. But delaying it to the end of the night means reducing the congregation of the Muslims, because those who pray after the obligatory prayer cannot and are not motivated to pray in congregation at the end of the night. So it is as if 'Umar is indicating that if the matter turns between combining the virtue of standing at the end of the night with a reduced congregation, and the virtue of standing at the beginning of the night with a large congregation, then the large congregation is better.