What are the valid conditions for the Friday prayer?

Al-Halabi : We read in the books of Islamic jurisprudence about conditions for the prayers, or for the Friday prayer, or others. What are the valid conditions for the Friday prayer?

The Shaykh : The reality is that, through the independent legal reasoning of the earlier imams, despite the disagreement among them regarding those conditions they established, many conditions were set for the Friday prayer. However, most of them do not stand up to criticism, or at least do not stand up to being stripped of the compelling evidence for their obligatoriness. Take, for example, a well-known condition among the later Shafi'is: it is required that the Friday prayer not be held in multiple congregations in many mosques. That is, the condition is that the Friday prayer be performed in a single mosque. If the Friday prayer is held in many mosques, the prayer of all the congregations is invalid except for the first congregation whose imam entered the prayer before the others. They know, especially in that era and even in this era, that it is not possible for the imam, or even the congregation after the closing salam, to know who was first, so that they can rule that the prayer of these people is valid and the prayer of those who came later is invalid and they must repeat it. Since this is not possible, even in our time when there are many means that bring the distant near and reveal the unknown, it is not possible for the congregation to know which is the first congregation. And from this follows a very serious ruling in their view: repeating the Friday prayer as the midday prayer. That is, everyone who prayed the Friday prayer in multiple mosques must repeat it as the midday prayer. Why? Because they did not know who among them was first. So this condition, the condition of the unity of the congregation in the Friday prayer, was stated by Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him), although there is another opinion that if the town is spacious and has two large mosques, it is permissible to hold multiple Friday prayers in it. This opinion is necessary for two reasons. The first reason is that there is no mention of such a condition, which is the non-multiplication of the Friday prayer, in the Sunnah, let alone in the Book. The second thing is the saying of the Exalted, as a general rule, as is known to all students of knowledge: It is obviously not possible for all the people in a single town to gather in a single mosque when the town is spacious with thousands upon thousands, let alone millions. If there is no evidence in the Book and the Sunnah for such a condition, and adhering to such a condition places people in difficulty, as they say, "in confusion," wondering whether our prayer was valid or not, this is not known in the Shari'ah, one of whose principles is the saying of our Lord (Blessed and Exalted is He): Therefore, the condition of the unity of the congregation in the Friday prayer has no evidence in the Book and the Sunnah; rather, it is contrary to the Book and the Sunnah because it places people in difficulty. But what was the basis of Imam al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) when he went to the opinion that this condition is obligatory, which I have explained as the weaker position just now? He had a point that has validity, but it does not include that obligatoriness. His point is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not have multiple Friday prayers in his time. The Friday prayer was unique in his mosque (peace be upon him). The people of the villages, the people of the highlands who were outside Medina and around Medina, would come down to the Prophet's Mosque (may Allah bless its founder and peace be upon him) on Friday. Yes, the point is that al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him) noticed that the congregational prayer in the Friday prayer was not multiplied, so he took that as a condition. But this can be expressed, if we want to call it a condition and follow Imam al-Shafi'i in his statement of the obligatoriness of this unity, as a condition of perfection, not a condition of validity. And on this basis, we say: It is not good to multiply the congregations in every mosque where the congregational prayer is held. It is necessary to distinguish between mosques and Friday mosques. The Friday mosque is the one that should be intended for the Friday prayer. As for the small mosques that are prepared for people in the neighborhoods and districts for the congregational prayer, these are left for the congregational prayer. It is not permissible, I say, to divide the congregations that gather and cluster in the Friday mosques by holding the Friday prayer in these small mosques. Because the small mosques existed in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him). You know that Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) used to pray the night prayer behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), then he would come to his people and lead them in the night prayer. It was a voluntary prayer for him and a congregational prayer for them. So the multiplication of mosques where the congregational prayer is held was known in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him), and in that is undoubtedly a concession for the Muslims. As for the multiplication of Friday mosques, it did not exist in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him). This is the reality that Imam al-Shafi'i noticed...; but by estimating and evaluating it, he said that the prayer is invalid if it is multiplied, even in large mosques. This is in one of his opinions. In another opinion, when old Baghdad and new Baghdad existed and the Tigris River separated them, he said it is permissible to hold two Friday prayers, one in each part. This is the summary of what can be said regarding this condition. There are other conditions, but the discussion of them is long and would take us away from what we mentioned at the beginning of our speech. However, we mention a comprehensive word: there is nothing in the Shari'ah that obligates Muslims to adhere to for the validity of the Friday prayer except the noble verse: When the call is made for the prayer on the day of Friday, that is, wherever you hear this call to prayer on Friday, you must respond. So whoever hears the call should respond, as came in some other hadiths. The second condition is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And there is a fourth thing I do not mention now. The important thing is in the congregation...

The questioner : The child?

The Shaykh: No.
Al-Halabi : The Bedouin?

The Shaykh : No; the important thing is that the Friday prayer is obligatory in a congregation, except for whom I am mentioning now: the woman and the slave.

The questioner : And the traveler.

The Shaykh : And the traveler.

Another questioner : And the sick person.

The Shaykh : Yes, now you have come to me, and the sick person; therefore, the Friday prayer is obligatory in congregation except for these three categories. There is no condition required for the validity of the Friday prayer other than that it be in a place where the call to prayer is made and where there is a congregation. A congregation is two people or more. So, if there is one imam and two people behind him, the prayer is valid. As for the desert dwellers, as mentioned earlier, many scholars say that the people of the desert are not obligated to perform the Friday prayer, but rather they should perform the midday prayer. Regarding this, what was said earlier about the condition of non-multiplicity applies: there is no evidence in the Book or the Sunnah that the people of the desert are exempt from the Friday prayer. The people of the desert are in one of two states, like the people of cities and villages: either they are travelers or they are settled residents. If they are travelers, there is no difference between the people of the desert and the travelers from the cities; the traveler, absolutely, as you heard in the previous hadith, does not have to perform the Friday prayer. But if they are settled residents, they must establish the Friday prayer, because this is an obligation, as some jurists say, serving as a substitute for the midday prayer, as it is distinguished by the Friday sermon, where the preacher admonishes and reminds, and so on, of knowledge. So, the statement that the people of the desert do not perform the Friday prayer, although it is narrated from some of them, has no evidence for it in the first place. Then, some authentic Salafi reports have come that confirm what we are saying, namely what Ibn Abi Shaybah narrated in his Musannaf from 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz (may Allah be pleased with him), and it is likely also from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, that he wrote to the people of the desert to establish the prayer wherever they are residing. Therefore, all Muslims must perform the Friday prayer wherever they are, and every condition other than what I mentioned earlier is, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Understanding this issue with this legal expansion is very, very important, especially in our present time. There are conditions that invalidate the prayer of many thousands of Muslims who have traveled, and I do not say emigrated, because they have not emigrated, for emigration is only from the abode of disbelief to the abode of Islam. Those I am referring to have only traveled from the lands of Islam to the abode of disbelief, and yet they call themselves emigrants. This is a distortion of the legal truth. The first emigrants, as you know, emigrated from Makkah, which is the best of Allah's lands and the most beloved of Allah's lands to Him, and then to His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). When he emigrated from it, he turned to it and said to it: These are the ones who left their preferred land, emigrating from Makkah to al-Madinah; these are the true emigrants. Why? Because they fled with their religion and saved their belief from the belief of the people of shirk (associating partners with Allah) and misguidance, to the abode of emigration, which is al-Madinah al-Munawwarah. As for these Muslims, they distorted the truth when they emigrated from the lands of Islam to the lands of disbelief. This is not emigration. It is true that the word emigration is derived from leaving, which is abandonment; but in the language of the Shari'ah, emigration became specific to traveling from the lands of disbelief to the lands of Islam. That is emigration. The point of this speech is that many of the Muslims who are afflicted today by traveling from the lands of Islam to the lands of disbelief do not have a valid prayer in those lands, specifically the Friday prayer. Their prayer is not valid. Why? Because there is a condition in the Hanafi school that the Friday prayer, when established, must be with the permission of the Muslim ruler. And where are the Muslim rulers today? Even in the heart of the abode of Islam, it is barely possible to find a ruler who rules by what Allah has revealed, so how about lands ruled by the Christian or the Jew? For example, take Palestine, for instance, we are not going far. In this opinion, the Friday prayer is not valid in Palestine. Why? Because they are establishing it, but there is no Muslim ruler who has given permission for its establishment. I was as pleased as I was saddened when it was decreed for me to travel to Britain and I met there many of those we mentioned earlier who are called emigrants. Among them are Arabs, Pakistanis, Turks, and so on. They are all residents in Britain, some in London, some in places whose names I do not know, which are very strange. I was pleased to tour some of them and contacted the Islamic communities there, and I found among them a movement that gladdens the heart. But from another perspective, it saddens the soul. On one hand, how can Muslims continue to hold certain jurisprudential opinions when reality forces them to contradict them? From my personal experience, I know that the most rigid in their adherence to the Hanafi school, specifically, are the non-Arabs, like us Albanians and Turks, and so on. Of course, there are exceptions, and we are among those exceptions, no doubt. These non-Arabs are the most rigid of Muslims in their adherence to the Hanafi school, and these non-Arabs are the vast majority residing in those disbelieving lands I am speaking about now. The thing that pleased me greatly was that I saw these Muslims either buying ready-made houses or at least renting them from their British residents and using them as prayer halls, even for the Friday prayer. So we asked: Where is the condition of permission from a Muslim, when they are living under the rule of the disbeliever? Where is the condition that the prayer is not valid except in a mosque? Some of them even condition that this mosque must be roofed. If it is like this, cut off, with no roof, even if it has four walls, this is not a mosque, and the Friday prayer is not valid in it. Such conditions! Reality forced these Muslims to cast them aside like spitting out a pomegranate seed and to act in accordance with the absolute statement of Allah the Exalted: This is one of the benefits of the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) that we call today Salafi fiqh, which is based on the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous Salaf. Some of them call it, meaning in a loose expression, comparative fiqh. They do not call it Salafi fiqh because it involves following a school of thought that some of them may not approve of, but they call it by another name. Comparative fiqh is neither Salafi nor Khalafi. The best speech is what pleases all people. What is meant by comparative fiqh? Comparing the evidence of the schools of thought with one another. Is this sufficient? This is not sufficient, obviously, because doing this is like one who performs wudu' (ablution) but does not pray. Why? Because wudu' is a means to prayer, a prerequisite for it. So if he performs wudu' and does not pray, his case is like one who compares one school of thought with another and then remains on his original school of thought, gaining nothing from this comparison. The main point of comparison is what? That a man, for example, has lived a lifetime as a Hanafi, and then after comparing the evidence for some issues, it becomes clear to him that the Shafi'i, Maliki, or Hanbali school is stronger in a certain issue, so he becomes non-Hanafi in that issue. This is the fruit of studying the fiqh that they call today comparative fiqh. But unfortunately, despite the fact that this is a required subject in the colleges of Islamic studies in some Islamic universities, you find the graduate from these colleges confused, not knowing which way to go, like a lost sheep that does not know whether to follow this one or that one. So there is no benefit from this study unless it is first based on the Book and the Sunnah and the methodology of the righteous Salaf, and then the intention behind it is to follow what becomes clear to him as the truth.