What is the ruling on reserving a place in the mosque?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : He says: O esteemed...The Shaykh : A man prays the obligatory prayer in the mosque, then we go to one of the circles of knowledge, so he reserves a place in the mosque. When the next obligatory prayer comes, he prays in his original place. Is this action valid for him or not?
The Shaykh : If it is within the limits you describe, then no soul is burdened beyond its capacity. Changing places is a prescribed and desirable matter. But if you imagine that he cannot find any place other than that one, what does he do?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : How?
The questioner : Reserving a place.
The Shaykh : Reserving, you say? Ah, why does he reserve it?
The questioner : To secure the virtue of the first row.
The Shaykh : No, it is not permissible. Securing the virtue is done by actually reserving a place, not by reserving it with a garment that he leaves there, then he goes off to attend to some of his other interests.
Yes.
Please proceed.
The Shaykh : If it is within the limits you describe, then no soul is burdened beyond its capacity. Changing places is a prescribed and desirable matter. But if you imagine that he cannot find any place other than that one, what does he do?
The questioner : ... .
The Shaykh : How?
The questioner : Reserving a place.
The Shaykh : Reserving, you say? Ah, why does he reserve it?
The questioner : To secure the virtue of the first row.
The Shaykh : No, it is not permissible. Securing the virtue is done by actually reserving a place, not by reserving it with a garment that he leaves there, then he goes off to attend to some of his other interests.
Yes.
Please proceed.
Source
www.al-albany.com
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.