The Imamate via the Recorder.

The questioner : Here is a strange question: ... the answer should be of the same kind; the Imamate via the recording?

The Shaykh : I say: It is not valid for the imam to be via a recording; meaning, we record the prayer of an imam whose voice is good and whose recitation is good, and we place a recorder and follow it in our prayer. Naturally, it may have become clear to you why I said I was surprised by the type of question; why? Because no one would digest this ruling, no one would think that we would remove the imam and put a recorder in his place; why? For the answer that you will know in what follows; for the same reason, it is not permissible to remove the mu'adhdhin and put a recorder in his place. We must know that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) — as we said earlier — said: So when the mu'adhdhin calls the adhan, this is part of the test of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) for him, and the imam when he leads the people is likewise, and the reciter when he recites, and so on for all acts of worship in obedience. So when we come to a mu'adhdhin who records his adhan in a recording device, then announces his adhan with this device; what does he do at that hour? Does he call the adhan? Naturally, he does not call the adhan; because he has become self-sufficient in his adhan by delegating the matter of his adhan to a substance that is not accountable, nor is it acceptable, nor is it responsible before Allah (Mighty and Majestic). ... The mu'adhdhin's turning away from conveying his adhan to the people is a turning away from the means that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) made a cause for raising the ranks of His servants who take hold of those means that He prescribed for them. And also in that is a turning away from taking hold of the means that may be a cause for the forgiveness of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) for the one who takes hold of these means. All of this is said about the mu'adhdhin and is said about the imam.
For example, from the hadiths that passed previously in this book at its beginning: Is this the hadith?

The questioner : .

The Shaykh : Yes, ; look now at this hadith, a supplication from the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) calling upon his Lord to forgive the imams. So if a Muslim prays as imam for the people once in his life and records this imamate in the recorder; this is one who did not become an imam except once in his life, so by delegating the matter to this device he has deprived himself of this virtue; , likewise the supplication of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in the completion of the hadith that our Lord (Mighty and Majestic) guide the mu'adhdhins and lead them to the right path. Likewise, this mu'adhdhin if he records his adhan has become self-sufficient from being deserving of such a supplication from his Prophet (may the prayer and peace of Allah be upon him).
Likewise, like the hadith: This is a virtue that no one from the people shares with the mu'adhdhins absolutely; do you think this virtue is obtained by the method of recording his adhan and his iqamah — also? The answer: No, we always and forever draw attention to the fact that to the extent that we expand for people in ordinary worldly matters, to that extent we restrict them in religious worship matters. It is not us who restrict them in reality; rather, we convey to them the ruling of Allah; so we say — for example —: this loudspeaker, this microphone for sound, has diverted the mu'adhdhins from many sunnahs; that is due to their ignorance or their negligence or both together. From the sunnah of the adhan is to ascend to a high place and to appear with his person. All of us read in the biography that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when he conquered Mecca, ascended with Bilal and called the adhan on the back of the Ka'bah; do you see why he did not call the adhan on the ground of the Ka'bah in the place where the people pray? That is because in this elevation and in announcing the voice with the tawhid of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in that pure place that the polytheists had polluted and defiled with their shirk and their placing of the idols that they used to worship besides Allah, so the placement of this mu'adhdhin with his high voice announcing there the tawhid of Allah (Mighty and Majestic), this without doubt has an echo and an effect on the righteous and the wicked of the people, each according to his status, and far less than that if he called the adhan on the ground of the Sacred Mosque.
Likewise, it was absolutely from the sunnah that the mu'adhdhin ascends in his adhan, appearing with his person and his voice together, then he turns in the sunnah to the right and the left. Today the mu'adhdhin is content ... with these sunnahs and the recording of the sound with this microphone for sound and its transmitter, as for appearing with his person, this is a sunnah they have left. And I saw with my own eyes and advised with my mouth some mu'adhdhins who call the adhan — also — not facing the qiblah, and the reason is that the loudspeaker was placed by the ignorant electrician, who was perhaps from those who leave the prayer, in a direction such that the microphone is facing the mu'adhdhin but not facing the qiblah. So the mu'adhdhin stood as he was told by the language of the situation, and the language of the situation is more eloquent than the language of speech ... We said to him: O my brother, the qiblah is from here and not from here, so he was not heeded temporarily until they fixed for him what? The placement of this microphone. So the point is that this microphone has ... and a loud voice; because from the sunnah, as came in the hadith regarding the legitimacy of the adhan, when Abdullah ibn Zayd al-Ansari came and related his vision to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), he said to him: , and there are many hadiths that the mu'adhdhin, if he calls the adhan, his voice does not reach a stone or a brick except that it testifies for him on the Day of Resurrection. These virtues come from magnifying the voice; so there is no harm in seeking help with this device that Allah created as a proof against His servants in this era, but with the condition that it not be a cause for losing other sunnahs. From these sunnahs is appearing, and I see that the mu'adhdhin should call the adhan in a high place, but the ambitions have weakened now, and this in reality is a punishment from Allah (Mighty and Majestic) for the people who do not adhere to the religious rulings. These minarets that were built and are still being built until today, despite their self-sufficiency from ascending on the back of the mosque, let alone ascending to the highest step of this long minaret; until today they are still building these minarets. These minarets are minarets that resemble skyscrapers, they are not from Islam in anything absolutely, rather they are showing off, boasting, and seeking reputation, which does not bring their owner near to Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) in any way. And yet, some mu'adhdhins in the past, and I witnessed in my time mu'adhdhins of the Umayyads, would actually ascend to the minaret and call the adhan from there. I do not know now.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : Even now, likewise.

The questioner: ... .

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh : A loudspeaker in, but where do they stand with the loudspeaker?

The questioner : Below, below.

The Shaykh : This is what I was afraid of.
So the point is: they used to ascend to the minaret in the past; first, they were more fearful of Allah and desirous of what is with Allah than the people of today in general, and the mu'adhdhins and imams in particular. As for the situation today, it has become a means of livelihood, a wage, and the intended goal in the claim of the mu'adhdhins today in the adhan is to dazzle the sound for the people around the mosque; what Allah willed, this conveys to those behind the other mosques!! Therefore, none of them thinks to appear with his person, nor does he maintain the sunnah in turning to the right and the left; because if he turns, the voice goes. So this loudspeaker was not placed in a way that considered the interests of the Muslims, and this is a great affliction; in the planning, the apparent material matters are always considered, and the general Islamic interests are not considered. And among the most severe things we saw as an example of what we are saying is the renovation of the Sacred Mosque. The Sacred Mosque, until a few years ago, was one floor. So when Allah bestowed upon the Saudi state what He bestowed of wealth, the masses of people were captivated by it, so they saw it necessary to expand the Sacred Mosque. And in reality, they expanded it, and among the expansion was the building of the second and third floors. But what do you think of the majority of the pilgrims who go to fulfill what Allah obligated upon them, if they pray on the second and third floors, their prayer is invalid? Do you know the reason? From the engineering of the building. It was obligatory when the planning of the mosque was placed for the renovation of the building of the second and third floors, that some of the scholars of fiqh be with the planning engineer, on the condition that they be intelligent and not ignorant like the engineers ... .