What is the authenticity of the hadith (Whoever hears the call to prayer and does not respond has no prayer for him except one who has an excuse)? And if one does not hear the adhan in the lands of the disbelievers, what is the ruling?

The questioner : Regarding the hadith , what is the grade of this hadith?

The Shaykh: Correct.

The questioner : Okay, Shaykh, regarding our situation here in America, we face the problem of not hearing the call to prayer. So how does one respond to the call to prayer, and consequently, how does one pray?

The Shaykh : It is not hidden that the intended purpose of this adhan and its legislation is, without a doubt, to remind people who may be heedless of the presence or the realization of the time of prayer. Therefore, Allah the Exalted said: . If we assume the situation you described just now, and this can happen even in Islamic countries, for example, a person might be in an industrial area where the noise of the machines prevents him from hearing the adhan of the mosque next to him, even if it is amplified by a loudspeaker, because the sounds of the machines he lives among prevent him from hearing the adhan, even with a loudspeaker. In that case, does this drop the obligation of congregational prayer from him, and a fortiori, does it drop the obligation of the Friday prayer, which is more emphatic than congregational prayer? The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said regarding the Friday prayer:

The questioner : Whoever does not hear the call.

The Shaykh : Whoever does not hear the call; this is the implication. So here, do we say this implication is absolute? Or do we say this explicit text is absolute? The answer to both is no. No. We do not say the implication or the explicit text is absolute. Why? Because it is possible that the one who heard the call has an excuse, for example, he is sick, he is lame, he is an amputee, and so on, so he cannot attend the Friday prayer. Thus, he has an excuse. So, the explicit text "The Friday prayer is obligatory upon whoever hears the call" is originally general, but those whom the Wise Lawgiver has excused are excluded from it. We say, regarding the implication, "There is no Friday prayer for whoever does not hear the call on Friday." Is this in its generality and comprehensiveness? We also say no, for the situation I described to you just now. The one who is obligated to attend the Friday prayer is near the mosque, but this is an industrial area with noise, and the machines and their sound cause him to lose the ability to hear the voice of the mu'adhdhin, if it is with a loudspeaker. What about if the voice is natural, not accompanied by a loudspeaker? In that case, does it drop from this person, who is a neighbor of the mosque, the obligation to attend the Friday prayer, or even congregational prayer, because he does not actually hear it in the situation you described? I say no. Why? Because he is able to adopt some means by which he can know when the time of prayer is. Because the original ruling is that this is obligatory upon him because he is a neighbor of the mosque, but he knows by experience that he does not hear the adhan of the mosque. Let us suppose that in the end he is deaf and does not hear, but he has a means to know that the time for the Friday prayer, or even congregational prayer as we said, has arrived. In that case, he must attend the prayer, and he has no excuse that he did not hear the adhan, because the intended purpose of hearing the adhan is for this person to be alert to the arrival of the time of prayer, and this alertness can be achieved by one means or another. For example, many people fall into this difficulty. "Why do you not get up, my brother, to pray the Fajr prayer?" "By Allah, my sleep is heavy, I do not hear the adhan," and he is truthful. But he has an alarm clock. If he has an appointment with a disbeliever, a Christian, or an open sinner, and he has an appointment to deal in trade and industry and the like, he sets the time he wants to wake up with the alarm clock, and the bell rings. So it is even more fitting that this treatment be applied to realizing the rulings of Allah the Mighty and Majestic. Therefore, whoever is in America or elsewhere must adopt some means that remind him of the obligation to attend the congregation of the Muslims. This is if there is a congregation, and we hear that there are Muslim congregations, varying in number, few or many. The important thing is if there is a mosque, but he does not hear the voice of the mosque's adhan for one reason or another, and he is in a position where, if those obstacles were not there, he would hear it, then he must attend. If he fears that he will miss attending due to the lack of an alarm, let him take an alarm for himself. The answer is clear. Do you have anything else regarding this?

The questioner : Okay, Shaykh, does this hadith imply that whoever does not have a legal excuse

The Shaykh : his prayer is invalid

The questioner : his prayer is invalid?

The Shaykh : No, this is a statement by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him). It is his statement that the one who has no excuse and does not pray, his prayer is invalid, based on the apparent meaning of this hadith. But this statement, despite its contradiction with the opinion of the majority of scholars, there are some evidences and texts that make us feel that the negation in this hadith is a negation of perfection, not a negation of validity. That is, "he has no prayer" means a complete prayer, meaning he misses twenty-seven degrees. And this is actually a great loss if the Muslim valued this virtue at its true worth. His (peace and blessings be upon him) saying: contains an indication that the prayer of the one who prays alone is valid, but he has lost twenty-seven degrees. This loss is what conflicts with the perfection that the Messenger negated in the first hadith.