The ruling on greeting the mosque on Friday.

The questioner : O Shaykh, regarding the hadith that my brother Ali mentioned, which you said is an authentic hadith in al-Bukhari, what is the jurisprudence of the hadith and its benefit?

The Shaykh : Do you mean the one in al-Bukhari?

The questioner : The hadith that my brother Ali mentioned and asked you about, which you said is an authentic hadith in al-Bukhari, what is the jurisprudence of the hadith and its benefit?

The Shaykh : Yes, you reminded me of a questioner from America yesterday. He was, of course, an Arab. It was a quarter to eleven when he said an incident happened to us. He said the preacher went up to the pulpit on Friday and preached to the people, and in his sermon he told them that if one of you enters the mosque on Friday while the preacher is preaching, he should not pray. So one of the people who had some knowledge of Islamic law wanted to respond to him, but he did not. Instead, he wrote a letter and sent it to the man, explaining to him that in this statement he had contradicted the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) narrated in *the two Sahihs* regarding the story of Salik al-Ghatifani Here comes that denoted addition The strange thing, and one thing reminds one of another, is that these followers of a school of jurisprudence, unfortunately, defend the opinions of the school and are more enthusiastic about them than they are about the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). Because if this hadith were to have this addition it would mean that he should pray this sunnah at home. Fine. And the claim is: is there a sunnah after the first adhan, which they call here in the mosque? That is one thing. The second thing is, if a man like this school-follower, whose story I am telling in America, came and they saw him sit down, and he wanted to apply this weak hadith would he apply it? The answer is no, because his school does not allow him to pray while the preacher is preaching, absolutely not, not even the pre-Fajr sunnah, which they call a confirmed sunnah; it is not permissible for him to pray. What do they benefit from this hadith? They benefit by nullifying the indication of the hadith. They do not benefit from what will be explained, which is that it is permissible for a Muslim, if he enters while the preacher is preaching on Friday, to pray two rak'ahs. The only thing is that these two rak'ahs are not the greeting of the mosque, but rather the pre-Fajr sunnah. So in this situation, they are like one who builds a palace and demolishes a fortress. Because the hadith will come to you saying So you, O follower of the Hanafi school, do you tell this man who did not pray the pre-Fajr sunnah at home, "Get up and pray while the preacher is preaching"? He does not do that. So they believe in part of the hadith and disbelieve in part of it. The witness wrote thisThe student : knowledgeable letter and sent it to the imam, hoping that he would learn and follow the guidance of my questioner. That this preacher, instead of coming to correct his position in the next Friday, came to confirm his previous position, as if the letter had not reached him and no one had reminded him of the authentic hadiths. We know that this is a man who is fanatical, dead from school fanaticalness. He said thatThe student : the author of the letter, when they saw him do this, stood up and responded to him, and brought the hadiths that he had written to him. What was in the letter?The questioner : He asks, did this man hit the mark?The student : Or did he err? I told him, "By Allah, if your expression meant what you said, and precisely when you said that he stood up and responded to him, and you wanted to complete it, he said to me, 'Excuse me, I erred; I responded to him after the prayer.' I told him, 'Since you have now corrected the expression of the incident, I say, may Allah bless that.'The student : He has hit the truth and done what is obligatory upon him of giving advice. But if he had stood up while the preacher was about to come down from the sermon to the prayer and responded to him, that is not permissible, because it would cause commotion between the sermon and the prayer. Whereas after the prayer, a person may speak and enjoin good and forbid evil. So this hadith indicates that the one who enters on Friday while the preacher is preaching does not drop the greeting of the mosque from him, but rather it is obligatory upon him. And from this hadith, we take a ruling by which we confirm the ruling of the obligation of the greeting of the mosque. We have another hadith that may allow us to argue for the obligation, but its indication is not as strong as the indication of the hadith of *Salik al-Ghatifani*. That other hadith is the hadith of *Abu Qatadah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him)*, who said: In a narration So we can use the hadith of Abu Qatadah to argue for the obligation of the greeting of the mosque. But it may be possible, especially for some fanatics of a school regarding the hadith, for them to say that the command does not always indicate obligation. But as for the hadith of Salik al-Ghatifani, there is no way to answer with such an answer regarding it, except to do what that preacher did, to whom the letter was presented; he ignored it and insisted on contradicting the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). The Messenger, while he is preaching and cutting off the sermon, orders the one sitting to stand up and pray, then turns to those sitting and says: This is what the Messenger said. This ignorant, poor preacher, what did he say? "If one of you enters the mosque on Friday while the preacher is preaching, let him sit and not pray." I mean, were it not for the ignorance of this person, and we in reality, as we always and forever affirm, offer an excuse for the ignorant Muslims today, because first, the people of knowledge are not fulfilling their duty in terms of conveying the message and enjoining good and forbidding evil. And then, even if they were fulfilling their duty, they are not fulfilling their duty toward themselves, because their knowledge is traditional, not derived from the Book and the Sunnah. So they may present guidelines and instructions to the people that contradict the Sunnah. So why do we blame this people? We offer an excuse in advance for people in general. So I say, this preacher and his like, we have seen many examples of them in Syria and elsewhere. Were it not for their ignorance of the correct Sunnah, and were it not for what has settled on their hearts from a long life in a school of jurisprudence, such that they cannot imagine Islam except as that school, we would say that this one who said, "Whoever enters the mosque on Friday, let him sit and not pray, has committed disbelief." Were it not for such things, we would say he has committed disbelief. But we do not say he has committed disbelief. Why? Because we seek an excuse for him and we imagine that any Muslim is convinced in the depths of his heart that the Messenger said It is impossible that he would come and strike this hadith and contradict it completely, or else his statement would be true, as He Blessed and Exalted said: This is one who splits the Messenger. The Messenger says, "Let him pray, then let him sit." He says, "Let him sit and not pray." It is a complete contradiction and collision. But he is ignorant. And you must know on this occasion the obligation of keeping in mind this rule, which is "excusing people for ignorance, whatever the circumstances," especially in our time, in which, as you have heard repeatedly, the saying of him (peace and blessings be upon him) is true: This is the time. Here we read magazines of shapes and colors, and we hear fatwas, most of which contradict the Book and the Sunnah, because they are issued, at the very least, by people who have no knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah. They have some knowledge of the school of jurisprudence in which they lived and studied, and then they claim independent legal reasoning, but they are not qualified for independent legal reasoning. Because the first means of independent legal reasoning is knowing the Sunnah and encompassing the largest possible quantity of it first, and then distinguishing the authentic from the weak among them second, while keeping in mind the verses related to the legal rulings. So if the Muslim society is living today under the guidance of those who, when asked, issue fatwas, they err and mislead, then what is permissible for us in this situation is to blame the masses of people. Recently, we were in a session where there was a noble man who had some general Islamic culture, and he was a merchant. The conversation turned to the topic of dealing with banks. We spoke with him, as we have spoken with you on many occasions. Our research reached the point where he claimed that some Islamic banks have Islamic transactions. So when we asked him, what was the question? Abu Abdullah, about the percentage: if it rises, does the cost-plus sale increase or not? What was the picture?

The questioner : I mean, if we trade with an Islamic bank for one thousand dinars, there is a percentage, for example, such and such.

The Shaykh : A commission. If it is ten thousand, the commission increases. If it is a million, the commission increases. We told him, "Be patient a little." We told him, "This increase, what is it in return for?" We understood that in return for a thousand, the commission is such and such. In return for a thousand, it becomes zero increase. He wrote instead of three zeros, he wrote four, so it became ten thousand. The percentage increased. We understood. The first was called a commission, and the second and third, as the price doubles, the commission doubles. In return for what? The man was somewhat, I mean, "Don't make a joke, Professor," we want to hear from you later, and in any case.