The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “When the imam says: (Ameen), then say: (Ameen).” So when do we say: (Ameen)?

The questioner : O Shaykh, ... when the imam says: Ameen; then say: Ameen; so when do we say: Ameen, when we do not hear the voice of the imam saying: Ameen?!

The Shaykh : The hadiths of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) explain one another. The explanation of this hadith is in another hadith, which is also agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim, namely his saying (peace and blessings be upon him and his family): , “When the imam says Ameen, then say Ameen.” This is the time when the followers should pronounce the Ameen. The clarification of this is that when the imam begins with his saying: , the followers must follow him in that; they must not precede him nor lag behind him. It is observed, with regret, that this recommended practice is neglected in many of the countries I have visited and prayed behind their imams. The imam barely finishes his saying: before the mosque is filled with their saying: . It is obligatory for every worshipper, in general, to be alert and not heedless. A necessary consequence of this alertness is that one places every thing in its proper place. Among this is not preceding the imam with the saying: . One should wait until he hears the imam begin with the elongation of the long alif , then the congregation should begin following the imam in: . Otherwise, first, they would be contradicting this explicit Prophetic command: , for it is on the same level as his saying (peace be upon him): to the end of the hadith. Second, if they precede the imam, they lose that great reward which he (may Allah’s prayers and blessings be upon him) promised the believers who say Ameen behind the imam, which is: .
: Here he (may Allah’s prayers and blessings be upon him) mentioned the angels, indicating that, as their Lord described them truthfully: , it is very obvious that the noble angels who attend the prayer with the Muslim congregation do not precede the imam as some worshippers do behind the Messenger (peace be upon him), and as we are in the process of clarifying. Thus, when the Muslim adheres to this hadith in terms of not racing ahead of the imam, his Ameen coincides with the Ameen of the angels, which the Messenger (peace be upon him) made a legitimate cause for the believer to attain the forgiveness of Allah for his sins.
And from the favor of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) upon His servants is that, in the time when He tested them with their human nature, testing them with desire and the instinct to follow one’s own inclinations, they inevitably fall into some amount, much or little, of disobedience. This is because they were not created with infallibility like the angels, as indicated by his saying (may Allah’s prayers and blessings be upon him) in the authentic hadith: — meaning the handshake — . So, by the nature of being human, one must inevitably commit some sins, little or much, which, if Allah does not forgive them, their commission becomes a cause for incurring His punishment: .
With this nature that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has stamped upon the human beings among His servants, He has provided them with legitimate causes by which Allah expiates their sins. Some of these causes — Glory be to Allah! — are easy and do not require, for example, great effort. Such as his saying (peace be upon him): , and his saying (peace be upon him): . They said: No, O Messenger of Allah. He said: . The prayers require effort, preparation, and so on. But from the favor of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) is that He made a very easy cause for attaining His forgiveness, with a little observation or struggle against the self. What is it? Simply to watch the imam’s saying: and restrain yourself until the imam begins to say: . Then you follow him, and by merely achieving this following, you have become deserving of the forgiveness of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): .
From this, it becomes apparent — and I have finished answering the question, so I will mention a benefit — the harmony of the rulings of the Shari'ah with one another. Those who go to the position that it is not legislated for the imam to raise his voice for the Ameen, their position or school of thought causes them to lose this virtue, because they are unable to apply this noble Prophetic command: . They do not know whether they should follow the imam’s saying of Ameen immediately after he finishes his recitation of ? They do not know that. Then they do not know whether he elongated the elongation called by the scholars of tajwid the elongation of softness , whether he elongated it for two, four, or six counts, so that they themselves can follow him in the Ameen. They cannot do that as long as the imam does not raise his voice for the Ameen. So they lost this virtue because of their first error, and they fell into another error, resulting in a great loss of this great favor. Therefore, it is the correct Sunnah that the imam raises his voice for the Ameen, as came in the hadith of Wa'il ibn Hujr (may Allah be pleased with him) that he heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him and his family) when he reached his saying: , he said: and raised his voice with it.
This is a practical Sunnah; “he raised his voice with it.” Another ruling followed from it — which I mentioned earlier — and from that other ruling followed that great favor from the Lord of the Worlds. So the Muslim should, therefore, observe the imam’s recitation in general, then his completion of his saying: , then his beginning of his saying: Ameen, so that he may follow him, thereby being a follower of the command and deserving of the reward.
Please.