Does a Muslim combine prayers if he works for a Christian?
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The questioner : ... The answer of Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him) is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) combined the midday and afternoon prayers without fear or rain ... ... What if he combined the sunset and night prayers?
The Shaykh : ... I have clarified it, I understood you, I am telling you: I did not understand the first part of your question, where is the difficulty, my brother? Is there a religious difficulty in working for a disbeliever? What is the difficulty you are imagining? I mean, is he compelled such that he fears for his life or falls ill if he leaves this Christian, and Allah has blocked the paths of lawful livelihood for him until he found no one but this Christian; is that what you are imagining?!
The questioner: No.
The Shaykh : ... So where is the difficulty? In principle, his work there means we are just guiding him to do carpentry, or is it better for the Muslim to deal with Muslims; do you understand? Where is the difficulty then? Therefore, I detailed it for you and mentioned that you—and without blame—did you not notice the detail? I did not direct this question to you. I told you regarding the first part of the question, I detailed for you between it being obligatory for him to pray in congregation and it not being obligatory? In the second case, it is permissible, and in the first case, it is not permissible.
Regarding the second part of the question, I told you that if this becomes his habit, that he combines between the sunset and night prayers, this is other than combining in difficulty. What does combining in difficulty mean? If we look closely at this word, its meaning is that generally we preserve the prayer in its times, and a situation comes where we hesitate to combine between the two prayers ... we do not combine between the two prayers like this picture after we have clarified and restricted it, but constantly, constantly he combines ... this one word is sufficient to be ... .
The Shaykh : ... I have clarified it, I understood you, I am telling you: I did not understand the first part of your question, where is the difficulty, my brother? Is there a religious difficulty in working for a disbeliever? What is the difficulty you are imagining? I mean, is he compelled such that he fears for his life or falls ill if he leaves this Christian, and Allah has blocked the paths of lawful livelihood for him until he found no one but this Christian; is that what you are imagining?!
The questioner: No.
The Shaykh : ... So where is the difficulty? In principle, his work there means we are just guiding him to do carpentry, or is it better for the Muslim to deal with Muslims; do you understand? Where is the difficulty then? Therefore, I detailed it for you and mentioned that you—and without blame—did you not notice the detail? I did not direct this question to you. I told you regarding the first part of the question, I detailed for you between it being obligatory for him to pray in congregation and it not being obligatory? In the second case, it is permissible, and in the first case, it is not permissible.
Regarding the second part of the question, I told you that if this becomes his habit, that he combines between the sunset and night prayers, this is other than combining in difficulty. What does combining in difficulty mean? If we look closely at this word, its meaning is that generally we preserve the prayer in its times, and a situation comes where we hesitate to combine between the two prayers ... we do not combine between the two prayers like this picture after we have clarified and restricted it, but constantly, constantly he combines ... this one word is sufficient to be ... .
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.