If showing off occurs during worship, does it invalidate the act?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Your Eminence, the Shaykh, mentioned the issue of showing off (riya') during the discussion. If the showing off is in the original act, it invalidates it. But if showing off arises during or in the middle of it, what is the ruling?
The Shaykh : Yes, if showing off occurs during worship, it is obligatory to resist it, turn away from it, and not pay attention to it. If a person resists it but is unable to, that does not harm him, based on the saying of Allah the Exalted:[Al-Baqarah 2:286] However, if he gives in to it and intends to show off, then if it is in prayer or something similar where if the end is invalid, the beginning is invalid, the prayer is invalid. This is because we cannot say that the last unit of prayer is defective and the first unit is valid. If it is something where the ruling of the end does not extend to the beginning, such as charity, for example, then the first part is valid because it is free from showing off, and the second part is not valid. If he prepared ten dirhams to give as charity and gave five with a sincere intention, then showing off entered into the remaining five, the first five are valid and there is no deficiency in them, and the invalidity is in the second part. This is the criterion when showing off arises in the middle of an act of worship.
First, we said: if he resists it, turns away from it, and does not give in to it, this does not harm him. If he gives in to it, we look: if the end of the act of worship is built upon its beginning, then if the end is invalid, the beginning is invalid, like prayer. Otherwise, the first part, which is free from showing off, is valid, and the second part, which contained showing off, is invalid.
The Shaykh : Yes, if showing off occurs during worship, it is obligatory to resist it, turn away from it, and not pay attention to it. If a person resists it but is unable to, that does not harm him, based on the saying of Allah the Exalted:
Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity
لا يكلّف الله نفسًا إلاّ وسعهاFirst, we said: if he resists it, turns away from it, and does not give in to it, this does not harm him. If he gives in to it, we look: if the end of the act of worship is built upon its beginning, then if the end is invalid, the beginning is invalid, like prayer. Otherwise, the first part, which is free from showing off, is valid, and the second part, which contained showing off, is invalid.