Is the follower obligated to follow the imam even in the recommended practices of the prayer?

The Shaykh : May Allah reward you with good.

The questioner : Regarding your reference to the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): You mentioned, may Allah bless you, in "The Description of the Prophet's Prayer (peace and blessings be upon him)" that if the imam does not sit for the rest, the follower should not sit.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : Does this mean that the intention is to follow the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), or that the intention is to follow the imam in the matter of the recommended practices of the prayer? You know, may Allah bless you, that among the recommended practices of the prayer is raising the hands. So if the imam does not do it, does the follower, for example, do it? And the sitting for rest is recommended from the perspective of the recommended practices, and following the action of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) in this regard does not contradict what you are saying now regarding the emphasis on the recommended practices in the prayer?

The Shaykh : I did not perceive the aspect of contradiction that you are asking about. I want to know the contradiction.

The questioner : The contradiction is that, for example, the imam did not sit for the rest.

The Shaykh : No, I understood that, but regarding the first issue.

The questioner : No, we have agreed on the first issue, and may Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : No, I knew that you had agreed. No, excuse me, I thought you were linking this to that. There is no connection.

The questioner : No, no, there is no connection, may Allah bless you.

The Shaykh : Okay, so then.

The questioner : The rule is the hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) who said: .

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : So the imam and the follower must follow the prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). We have agreed on this. But if the imam fails or makes a mistake in one of the recommended practices, for example, the sitting for rest.

The Shaykh: All right.

The questioner : You know, may Allah bless you, that in the lands of the Peninsula, this sitting is not known among us.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : And most of the imams of the mosques do not do it. So if we follow the imam, we would hide this recommended practice.

The Shaykh: Perfect.

The questioner : So if we contradict the imam, according to your saying, it means that we have contradicted the Sunnah from another angle.

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : So what do you advise us?

The Shaykh : I am telling you now: which of the two sittings is stronger in jurisprudence, in the Shari'ah, and in the Sunnah: the sitting for rest or the sitting for the tashahhud? There is no doubt it is the sitting for the tashahhud. Well, if the imam makes a mistake and, instead of sitting for the tashahhud, stands up for the third rak'ah, what do you do?

The questioner : We stand up and follow him.

The Shaykh : You follow him? Why? You have left not just a recommended practice, you have left an obligatory one. Well, why did you follow him?

The questioner : Because there is a basic ruling that we must follow.

The Shaykh : No...

The questioner : Because following in this matter is obligatory for the imam.

The Shaykh : Very good. And your saying "in this matter," do you mean what you are saying, or is it a broad category? Heh. May Allah—may He have mercy on him—He is the Greatest, heh—may He have mercy on him and forgive us and him, heh. But this is of the type: put it in your mind, what Allah willed, what Allah willed, Allah.
The student : I hope to be worthy of your good opinion.

The Shaykh : May Allah bless you. In truth, some of our senior brothers, even though they are not among us, meaning, but, glory be to Allah, when they see that I am taking them by logic, heh, they immediately take their guard and look at the outcome, meaning the outcome. Do you want to take me? Well, my brother, I am taking you to prison, I am taking you to the Sunnah, not by force, but by logical, Shari'ah-based premises. A person does not feel it until he finds himself submitting to this truth completely. Therefore, I also say, may Allah bless you, that you said "restricted to this matter," so perhaps now this matter is a bit broad, heh. If the imam—let us go with you now—that this matter is very narrow and does not allow for anything but this issue, heh. If the imam makes a mistake of the other type, for example, he jumps and forgets a verse while reading, and you pointed it out to him, but he did not respond to you. There is no doubt that this is a mistake. What do you do? You follow him. You follow him. So the issues in which the imam may make a mistake cannot be limited to one issue. Therefore, it is not possible to divide following the imam, or the obligation of following the imam, into two categories: a category where following is obligatory and a category where following is not obligatory. I will answer now with the situation that occurred to the Messenger (peace be upon him), and I am recalling three situations from it: the day he prayed the 'Asr prayer in two rak'ahs, the day he prayed the Dhuhr prayer in five rak'ahs, and the day he prayed the Maghrib prayer in two rak'ahs. The Companions of the Messenger (peace be upon him) followed him in all these situations and did not freeze as some do, their silent state saying, "What do I do with this imam? He made a mistake and stood up for the fifth. I will remain in a state of prostration, sitting, or standing, I will not move." No, the Companions of the Messenger did not do this. Rather, he stood up for the fifth in the Dhuhr prayer, and they followed him. After he said the taslim (peace be upon him), this was from the perspective of reminding, or do you know this? Yes.

The questioner : This is a benefit...

The Shaykh : Yes, may Allah reward you with good. So he said to them: . Here, some of the early jurists say: No, if he stood up for the fifth and we followed him, our prayer is invalid. They argue that that time was a time of teaching and legislation, and the Shari'ah had not yet descended after His saying (Glorified and Exalted is He): . I say, in answer to this doubt: Yes, that is the case. But this does not mean that it is not obligatory, let alone that it is not permissible, to follow the imam in the fifth rak'ah after he has been reminded and has not been reminded. It does not mean? Why? Because if the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) had wanted to make it clear to people that the Shari'ah ruling related to this situation differs from the ruling that occurred between the Companions and the Messenger after the death of the Messenger, he would have clarified the ruling and said: "If, for example, the imam forgets and stands up for the fifth, do not follow him." There is no doubt he is not one who forgets, . Ah. And if we assume that this came before, the second issue came: he prayed the 'Asr prayer with them in two rak'ahs. The story of the man with two hands is well known. He said: "O Messenger of Allah, did the prayer become shorter or did you forget?" He said: . He said: Yes, it had. So the Messenger of Allah looked at the Companions, among them Abu Bakr and 'Umar: . They said: Yes. And he had moved to a side of the mosque and placed one foot on the other to rest (peace be upon him). When it became clear to him that he had prayed two rak'ahs, he stood up to his place. And I do not say to his mihrab, because there was no mihrab in the technical sense. And the technical sense distorts the meaning of the Qur'anic verse when it is placed on top of the mihrab: ; meaning this mihrab, and this is a lie and a fabrication against the verse. Rather, as you know, our mihrab is the place of worship, the place of worship.
The point is: So the Messenger returned to his place and completed the two rak'ahs and said the taslim, and prostrated the two prostrations of forgetfulness. Likewise, he prayed the Maghrib prayer in two rak'ahs. And this is a stranger story, and what happened here also happened in the 'Asr prayer in two rak'ahs, where the people quickly left. They did not want to glorify, they did not want to praise, they did not want to say takbir, they did not believe that the Messenger had said the taslim from there. Well, here in the Maghrib prayer, he (peace be upon him) was reminded that he had prayed two rak'ahs, so he ordered the iqamah of the prayer to be made anew and he came with the missing or forgotten rak'ah, then prostrated two prostrations. So if there had been a new ruling after the death of the Messenger, the Messenger would have clarified it, at least in one of these incidents, which is supposed to be the last, and Allah knows best. But he must have clarified it: , and .
So this issue is not from one single perspective, unless we broaden it and include every issue in which the imam made a mistake. In that case, it is obligatory for us to follow the imam.