What is the ruling on forming a row next to a pillar during prayer?

The questioner: We have an imam here like this, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh: It is the imam, yes.

The questioner: The row behind him is connected.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: There are two pillars here, but the imam is in the middle.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: Do the people praying here fall under the prohibition of praying between pillars, as is the case in the Salah al-Din Mosque?

The Shaykh: If people pray here and people pray there.

The questioner: These people are entering [the prohibition].

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: These people are entering the prohibition; I am asking about here, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh: If this row is completed from here and from there, it falls under the prohibition. Usually, people at certain times of the five prayers, for example Fajr, know that the people of the neighborhood do not fill the space between the two pillars, so it is not under the prohibition. It is clear up to here, good. So if a man or more comes and finds the row like this, finding a gap here or there, he should not join this row because it is broken. He should establish a row here, which is the third row in appearance but the second row in the Shari'ah. I have given you the answer.

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh: Now, as for what happens in Salah al-Din, this row is broken on the side, but behind the imam it is connected. As for this picture here with two pillars, the detail is as you heard. If this row here can accommodate, for example, ten people, and three, four, or five pray, and so on, and this is the usual case due to the few attendees in one of the prayers, as we said, this row is not broken because it itself is not complete. But if it is completed between the pillars, and one person comes from here or one from there, or both from here and there, then this row is undoubtedly broken. At that time, it is obligatory to form the last row here.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good, O our Shaykh.

The Shaykh : May Allah preserve you.

The questioner: There is a note, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh: Go ahead.

The questioner: As for the Salah al-Din Mosque, the row behind the imam is connected, but it is completed between the pillar on the right side of the one that cut off the minbar.

The Shaykh : Yes, that is right.

The questioner: So what is the difference between this and what is in Salah al-Din, my Shaykh?

The Shaykh: Because what is behind the imam, we can consider the minbar as a barrier, a barrier. But I mean, if we suppose the minbar is on the sunnah, on the sunnah, meaning three steps, and the first row, which is directly behind the imam, is connected, and they came and completed the first row from behind what? The barrier? This is broken, no doubt. But what is behind the imam is not broken. Did you understand this picture? This is not hypothetical.

The questioner: No problem, be patient with me, my Shaykh.

The Shaykh: No, because I am being patient with you, I am telling you, did you understand this picture? This is the second one.

The questioner: I clarified the picture for me that what is behind the imam, which takes up the whole mosque as is the case in the Salah al-Din Mosque, is this row, a connected row.

The Shaykh: ... No problem, I understood this and you are right to understand it, but the picture I illustrated is the answer to your question. I clarified this picture for you.

The questioner: It was not clarified.

The Shaykh: This is what I said, that we suppose the minbar is sunnah, meaning three steps, meaning it does not break the row confined in the mosque between the western wall and the eastern wall. So this row behind the imam is connected. But people came from the right side of the mosque or the left side and completed the row, which is behind the imam. In this picture, it becomes what? Broken.

The questioner: Even what is behind the imam, all of it became a broken row.

The Shaykh: No, what I want to tell you is that what is behind the imam is not broken, and the matter is very clear, because the one behind the imam sees the movements of the imam and his transitions, and so on, unlike the ones what? Behind the minbar in the picture that is happening today, and unlike the picture I am imagining for you.
The student: Yes.

The Shaykh: Did you understand the picture I am depicting for you?
The student: Yes.

The Shaykh: And on this occasion, I mention to you a real story with me that shows you the difference between those behind the imam and those who are behind the minbar. About thirty years ago, or more or less, I no longer remember, I went down to the summer resort of Mada'a, which we have in Syria. I don't know if I ever went there. There is the Zabadani and Baqil and so on. So there is a town on the mountain, elevated above the street, named Mada'a. So I went down there with my family to spend about a week. I went down to pray Fajr on Friday morning to the mosque, which is also on the mountain. The imam did not attend. They looked at the people around them who were present. Apparently, they found me a young man with a beard. They said to me, please. I stepped forward and led them in the Friday morning prayer. Do you know? The Sunnah is to recite Surat al-Sajdah and Surat al-Dahr. First, I did not have them memorized perfectly by heart. Second, I had an idea I had benefited from my study of Hanafi fiqh, where they state that reciting these two surahs is a Sunnah, but if there is a fear that the Sunnah will become an obligatory matter for the general public, it should be left off sometimes to indicate that this is a permissible matter and that leaving it off does not invalidate the prayer. And on this occasion, I know that fitnah used to happen in the Great Mosque, the Umayyad Mosque, because the imam did not recite Surat al-Sajdah. After he would finish the prayer, the common people would rise up against him, as if it is in their minds that the prayer is not valid except with Surat al-Sajdah. So due to my not mastering the two surahs first, and because it was in my mind that the imam must sometimes leave off these two surahs, even if he had them memorized, I opened the first rak'ah with Surat Kahif. I read, as I remember, the first and second pages, and I bowed. I did not feel anything except that the row behind me stood up and prostrated, because they were accustomed that the first takbir is the takbir of prostration, prostration of recitation. Here is the point: those behind me, pay attention, I was not prostrating, so they stood up and joined me in what? In the bowing. They were, praise be to Allah, prostrating, and they had never prostrated that prostration for that length. When they heard me say "Allahu has heard the one who praises Him," the commotion started. So there, they invalidated their prayer. And what is this imam? And what is this ignorant person? I don't know, by Allah, what they said. After the prayer, I gave them a short speech and mentioned to them this precise fiqh meaning I mentioned to you now. Then I directed blame at them. "O people, if this story happened in the lands of the non-Arabs, those who do not know the Arabic language and do not understand what the imam is reading, they do not distinguish between alif-lam-mim and kaf-ha-ya-ayn-sad, and they read to you according to the rules of tajwid, kaf-ha-ya-ayn-sad. Where are your minds, O people? You do not distinguish between this and alif-lam-mim. No doubt your minds are behind the cows and the crops and the udders." I gave them this sermon. So the point is: those directly behind the imam with the minbar form a row behind the imam. Those behind the minbar are cut off from this row. So they are to be blamed and held accountable. And if the imam made a mistake like this mistake, what happened with those people would happen with him exactly, also in the picture I depicted for you. And this happens often in the Prophet's Mosque and the Sacred Mosque. But there we say, no problem, we say there is a necessity, as we say that praying between pillars on Friday, for example, if the mosque is crowded, there is no harm in it. But when the mosque is empty, why this crowding? Likewise, the people who pray behind the western or eastern wall, same issue, same problem. And some of the jurists who like to treat matters with half-solutions, as it is said, they proposed opening the door, the one under the minbar. Did you understand how? In their opinion, this connects the row. And some of them said, which is stranger than that, that this minbar is in the position of two men. Do you see? This is my opinion in distinguishing between this picture you depicted now and the reality in the Salah al-Din Mosque.

The questioner: Okay, my Shaykh, no problem, it is just a note. Okay, why did we rule here that if it is completed from the right and the left, we ruled that the middle is separated, that it has become under the prohibition?

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: Because of the intermingling of people on the right and the left, knowing that we said that those on the right, their prayer, for them, they prayed and the prohibition reached them.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: Those on the left, when they found them, they saw the imam in prayer. The row was complete for them.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: The middle row, the separated one, which is between the pillars.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: Meaning, as you mentioned, my Shaykh, you said that if it is not completed, it is a complete row and is not considered under the prohibition.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner: But why did we say that if people come from the west and the east, it becomes cut off and falls under the prohibition?

The Shaykh : Because, may Allah bless you, this differs from the first row. The first row has specific virtues. Those who stand behind the imam in the first row in the Mosque of Salah al-Din cannot be compared to the second or third rows, and so on. It has a special virtue. Therefore, I clearly remember that Imam al-Ghazali says in *Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din* that the criterion is the row behind the imam. He does not say behind the minbar, because these long minbars did not exist at that time. However, there was something, perhaps like a minbar or worse, called the *maqsurah*. The *maqsurah* is a room where the prince who leads the people in prayer as imam would retreat to, in order to protect himself from what happened to 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, or 'Ali, or 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, and so on. Al-Ghazali says the criterion is the row behind the imam, whereas whoever is behind the *maqsurah* is disconnected. This is the viewpoint we hold.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : May Allah preserve you.