Speaking on the obligation of following the imam in prayer.

The Shaykh : Praise is to Allah; we praise Him, seek His forgiveness, and seek His help, and we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our own selves and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can mislead, and whomsoever He misleads, none can guide. And I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His messenger.
As for what follows, what comes to mind for me in this blessed evening, if Allah wills, to remind you of—and the reminder benefits the believers—is a common error among the general public of worshippers, and few are those who escape falling into it. We have all become accustomed to hearing many lectures and lessons warning against matters that are known to contradict the Shari'ah, such as the prohibition of riba (usury or interest), theft, and zina (unlawful sexual intercourse), and the like, whose prohibition is not hidden from any individual among the Muslims, no matter how far they are from attending gatherings of knowledge. Therefore, we see that the best thing by which Muslims should be reminded is that which the masses are afflicted with by contradicting the Shari'ah while they are heedless and unaware. This type of contradiction is what the people of knowledge should focus on and remind people of, so that those who are upright may remain on the straight path after having deviated from it due to their ignorance of it. Among this type is what we hear in every loud prayer and in any mosque in which we have prayed; we must see this contradiction. The worst of contradictions is that which possesses two characteristics: the first is that it is public and open, and the second is that it is widespread among the masses of people, especially the worshippers.
So we say now that the disagreement we hear in every loud prayer is the questioner getting ahead of the imam in some rulings. The most prominent of these is getting ahead of the imam with the *Amin*. Getting ahead of the imam with the *Amin*. We always hear, without fail, that after the imam has started the *Amin*, the followers begin the *Amin*, and then he catches up with them. This reverses the legal rule established by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in his saying: In this hadith, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) established a rule that is considered one of the strong principles of jurisprudence. The principles of jurisprudence are divided into two types, one more important than the other. The first is what the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) explicitly stated in his words; this is a rule. The other type is what the scholars derived from the texts of the Book and the Sunnah. If they agree on it, their agreement is guidance and good, but stronger than that is what the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explicitly stated, such as this rule. Then he mentioned the rest of the hadith, and there is no need to repeat it again. But I am dwelling on the last part of the hadith, which is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): This is a very important matter that shows you the importance of following the imam, the importance of the first part of the hadith: Even if the imam prays sitting, of course due to an excuse, the followers must pray behind him sitting. Not due to an excuse related to themselves or their bodies, but their excuse is to fulfill the command of the Messenger (peace be upon him). The importance of this hadith, especially in the last example given by the Messenger (peace be upon him), which is his saying: You all know, if Allah wills, that the prayer of one who is able to stand in the obligatory prayer, his prayer standing is a condition, indeed a pillar of this prayer. If he prays sitting in the obligatory prayer, I repeat, if the one who is able to stand prays sitting in the obligatory prayer, his prayer is invalid. Why? Because he did not fulfill the condition that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) commanded in the Noble Qur'an: Despite this, despite the fact that standing in the obligatory prayer is a pillar of the prayer, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded the followers of the imam who is praying sitting due to illness or an excuse, as happened to the Messenger (peace be upon him) in some of his prayers, that the followers of this sitting imam should sit. That is, they should drop the pillar of standing in the obligatory prayer. For what purpose? For the sake of matching the imam and for the sake of following him. This part of the hadith makes it clear to you, with a clarity beyond which there is no clarity, that following the imam and not disagreeing with him is a very great matter, to the extent that the Wise Lawgiver dropped the pillar so that disagreement would not appear between the follower and the one being followed.

The questioner : Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace. If you have understood this reality, we now come to the issue I mentioned earlier, and I said that the best thing by which a believer should remind his brothers is that which people are heedless of and immersed in contradiction, from the first of them to the last, except for a few and rare ones.