Is a specific number and a specific place required for the Friday prayer, or does it have the ruling of the congregational prayer?

The questioner : May Allah reward you. He says: What is the ruling on performing the Friday prayer in the open for a group of men, whether their number is five, ten, or more, and what is the ruling on the sermon in it as well?

The Shaykh : If we return to the Book of Allah, the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, and the reports of the Salaf, the answer is what came in the saying of the Exalted: This verse does not stipulate any of the conditions mentioned in the books of jurisprudence, especially the later ones, and despite the severe disagreement among them, it mentions only one condition, which is the congregation. So hasten to the remembrance of Allah and leave off selling. Based on this verse, which stipulates nothing other than leaving worldly transactions and proceeding to the remembrance of Allah, the sermon and the prayer, it came in some reports from some of the great imams, such as the fifth caliph, 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz (may Allah be pleased with him), that he wrote during his caliphate to the Arabs dwelling in their tents in the desert to perform the Friday prayer. And on this basis, we do not distinguish between the Friday prayer and the congregational prayer in terms of its legitimacy or its legitimacy in any place without any condition other than the condition of the congregation, which the scholars of the Muslims have agreed upon, to our knowledge, to affirm this conditionality. This is unlike the congregation in the congregational prayer, where the majority hold that it is not a condition, and the disagreement among them is between those who say it is obligatory, which is the position we adopt, and those who say it is a confirmed recommended practice. As for the congregation in the Friday prayer, it is one of the conditions of the Friday prayer. So if one misses the congregation, he prays the Friday prayer as Zuhr, four rak'ahs. This is from the grace of Allah, one of the things we used to revive in every place we settled, let alone Damascus, where we were raised with our knowledge. This issue was among the matters for which I was criticized when I was a professor of hadith at the Islamic University. We used to go out sometimes with some of our brother students to outside the city, and we would reach the shore of the Red Sea or elsewhere, and it would be Friday, so we would perform the Friday prayer and deliver the sermon to them. There are those who stipulate that it must be in a building, and if it is in a building without a roof, the Friday prayer is not valid. These are very, very strange things that a Muslim notices and wonders about, and after research, thinking, and deepening, he finds that these conditions were taken from the reality of the prayer of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) for the Friday. For example, the first thing he did when he came to the city was to build the mosque. This mosque had a wonderful roof. This reality makes a condition. What is the evidence? In the recent past, when we spoke about the answer regarding wiping over the socks, when he read the conditions of wiping over the socks in the jurisprudence of the four schools of thought, the man invalidated wiping over the socks because it is very difficult to fulfill those conditions on socks, especially the ones known today.The questioner : Regarding wiping over the leather socks, when he read about the conditions for wiping over the leather socks in jurisprudence from the four schools of thought, the man invalidated wiping over the leather socks because it is very difficult to fulfill those conditions on socks, especially the ones known today.

The questioner : And one can walk continuously on them.

The Shaykh : And so on. So our answer there was with some detail, but the point is that we said: We do not have anything except that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wiped over the leather socks and wiped over the sandals. Do we have the right to delve deep and ask: What color were the leather socks the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wiped over? Were they black or white? What was their wool? From sheep, goats, cows, or camels? And so on. This is being overly strict in religion, and we spoke at length about this. But the reality is that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) wiped over the leather socks. And if there had been a condition for this wiping, he would have explained it And so we say: The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) established the Friday prayer as soon as he came to Madinah by building the mosque. This is an indication that it is obligatory for the residents of a place they settle in to build the mosque immediately to gather the Muslims in it. But if, as sometimes happens, especially in these lands, the construction is made of concrete and cement and so on, and the roof has not yet been raised, what prevents one from praying in this place? Indeed, what prevents one from praying in the open if they are like the people of the tents, those who were issued a ruling in the time of 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz regarding prayer? So this is how we applied this legal ruling there in the Hijaz, and that was among the matters for which, may Allah have mercy on you, some people took issue with us because of it. So the Friday prayer is valid in any place, and the sermon is valid in any form and in any language if the people are not Arabs. Therefore, the early jurisprudence, which we call that derived from the Book and the Sunnah, is the solution to modern problems.