The number of people required to perform the Friday prayer
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Q: I have read in some books that one of the conditions for performing the Friday prayer is the presence of forty people for whom the prayer is obligatory. It was previously published in *al-Da'wah* a fatwa from Your Eminence stating that it is performed with two people along with the imam. How do we reconcile these two matters?
A: The condition of forty people for performing the Friday prayer was held by a group of scholars, among them Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (may Allah have mercy on him). The stronger opinion is that it is permissible to perform it with fewer than forty, and the minimum number required is three, as mentioned in the fatwa in response to the question preceding this one, due to the lack of evidence for the condition of forty. The hadith regarding the condition of forty is weak, as al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar clarified in *Bulugh al-Maram*.
A: The condition of forty people for performing the Friday prayer was held by a group of scholars, among them Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (may Allah have mercy on him). The stronger opinion is that it is permissible to perform it with fewer than forty, and the minimum number required is three, as mentioned in the fatwa in response to the question preceding this one, due to the lack of evidence for the condition of forty. The hadith regarding the condition of forty is weak, as al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar clarified in *Bulugh al-Maram*.
Source
binbaz.org.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.