His saying (peace and blessings be upon him): “A woman, a donkey, and a black dog break the prayer.” Does this breaking also imply invalidity, or does it imply a reduction in reward?

The questioner : As long as the discussion is about what breaks the prayer. As long as the discussion is about what breaks the prayer, this reminds us of his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): ; does this breaking also imply invalidity, or does it imply a reduction in reward, as some have held?

The Shaykh : No, this implies invalidity. The breaking that implies a reduction in reward is anything other than these three things, because this hadith is explicit. The hadith here is to be taken at its apparent meaning; otherwise, there would be no benefit in specifying these three. If the intention were to break the excellence, that excellence is broken by the passage of anything in front of the one praying. So specifying these three categories in this hadith means that the breaking here is different from the breaking in other cases; it is invalidation.

The questioner : How do we respond to what is narrated from Ibn Abbas that he came riding on a female donkey, and the like?

The Shaykh : There is no problem with this, because first, Ibn Abbas passed in front of the row, and the row was covered by its imam. So the hadith of Ibn Abbas would only be a point of doubt if he had passed in front of the Messenger (peace be upon him).

The questioner : The imam, I mean.

The Shaykh : And he is the imam in this regard. It is not sufficient that he passed in front of the Messenger; rather, he passed in front of the Messenger and the place of prostration. The hadith explicitly states that he passed in front of the row, which does not specify whether the one passing in front of the row of followers invalidates the prayer of the followers. There is no indication that the passage of this animal was between the praying people and their place of prostration. So what invalidates the prayer is passing between the praying people and the place of prostration. Therefore, the hadith of Ibn Abbas is answered with two responses. The first is that it is not explicit that the one passing was between the praying people and the place of prostration. The second response is: suppose that was the case, then the imam’s sutrah is a sutrah for those behind him, so there is no evidence in that that contradicts this explicit, authentic saying of the Messenger (peace be upon him).