The Ruling on Praying with Those Who Adhere to Religious Innovation

Question:
What is the ruling for a resident in a country whose people adhere to religious innovation? Is it valid for him to pray the Friday prayer and the congregational prayer with them, or should he pray alone, or is the Friday prayer dropped from him? And if the people of the Sunnah in a country are fewer than twelve, is the Friday prayer valid for them or not?

Answer:
Establishing the Friday prayer is obligatory behind every imam, whether righteous or wicked. So if the imam in the Friday prayer is not one whose innovation takes him out of Islam, then one prays behind him. Imam Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi (may Allah have mercy on him) said in his famous creed: “We hold that it is to pray behind every righteous and wicked person from the people of the Qiblah, and upon those who die from them.” He ended there. The commentator of this creed, who is one of the precise scholars, said in his commentary on this phrase: “The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: It was narrated by Makhul from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) , and al-Daraqutni reported it and said: Makhul did not meet Abu Hurayrah, and in its chain is Mu'awiyah ibn Salih, about whom scholars have spoken, and Muslim relied on him in his Sahih.
Al-Daraqutni also reported it for him, and Abu Dawud reported it from Makhul from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) , who said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .
In Sahih al-Bukhari, it is stated that Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) used to pray behind al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf al-Thaqafi, and likewise Anas ibn Malik, and al-Hajjaj was an open sinner and a wrongdoer. In his Sahih, it is also stated that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: And from Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both), the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Al-Daraqutni reported it through various chains and graded them as weak.
Know, may Allah have mercy on you and on us, that it is permissible for a man to pray behind one from whom he does not know of any religious innovation or open sinfulness, by the consensus of the imams. It is not a condition of following an imam that the follower knows the belief of his imam, nor that he tests him by saying: What do you believe? Rather, he prays behind one whose state is concealed. Even if he prays behind an innovator who calls to his innovation, or an open sinner whose sinfulness is apparent, and he is the regular imam whom he cannot pray behind except him—such as the imam of the Friday and the two festivals, and the imam in the prayer of Hajj at 'Arafah, and the like—then the follower prays behind him according to the majority of the Salaf and the Khalaf. And whoever leaves the Friday and congregational prayer behind the wicked imam is an innovator according to most scholars, and the correct view is that he prays it and does not repeat it.
For the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) used to pray the Friday and congregational prayer behind the wicked imams and did not repeat it, just as Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) used to pray behind al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and likewise Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) as mentioned earlier, and likewise Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (may Allah be pleased with him) and others used to pray behind al-Walid ibn Uqbah ibn Abi Mu'ayt, who used to drink intoxicants, until he once prayed the Fajr prayer with them four rak'ahs and then said: Shall I add more for you? So Ibn Mas'ud said to him: “We have been with you since this morning in addition [to the prescribed number].”
In the authentic collections, it is stated that when Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) was besieged, a person prayed with the people, so a questioner asked Uthman: You are the general imam, and this one who prayed with the people is an imam of fitnah? He said: “O my son, prayer is among the best of what people do, so if they do well, do well with them, and if they do wrong, avoid their wrongdoing.”
The open sinner and the innovator, their prayer in itself is valid, so if the follower prays behind him, his prayer is not invalidated. But the reason those who disliked it disliked praying behind him is that enjoining good and forbidding evil is obligatory.
From this: One who displays religious innovation and open sinfulness and does not appoint an imam for the Muslims deserves discretionary punishment until he repents. If it is possible to boycott him until he repents, that is good. And if some people, by leaving the prayer behind him and praying behind someone else, have an effect in denouncing the evil until he repents or is removed or people stop from such a sin, then for such a person, leaving the prayer behind him has a legal benefit, and the follower does not miss the Friday or the congregation.
As for if leaving the prayer behind him causes the follower to miss the Friday and the congregation, then here, no one leaves the prayer behind him except an innovator who contradicts the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) . Likewise, if the authorities have appointed the imam and there is no legal benefit in leaving the prayer behind him, then here, one does not leave the prayer behind him, rather praying behind him is better.
So if it is possible for a person not to appoint a display of evil as an imam, it is obligatory for him to do so. But if someone else appointed him and he cannot remove him from the imamate, or if he cannot remove him from the imamate except by a greater harm than the harm of the evil he displayed, then it is not permissible to repel a little corruption with much corruption, nor to repel the lesser of two harms by bringing about the greater of them. For the legislations came to obtain benefits and perfect them, and to disable harms and reduce them according to possibility. So missing the congregations is a greater corruption than following the wicked imam in them, especially if the absence from them does not repel the sinfulness, so the legal benefit is disabled without repelling that harm.
As for if it is possible to perform the Friday and congregation behind the righteous, then that is better than performing it behind the wicked. And at that time, if one prays behind the wicked without an excuse, it is a place of independent legal reasoning for the scholars, some of whom said: He repeats it, and some of whom said: He does not repeat it, and the place of elaborating that is in the books of branches.” This is the end of the commentator's words.
The closest view in this last issue is not repeating the prayer, due to the previous evidence; and because the original ruling is that repeating is not obligatory, so it is not permissible to obligate it except by specific evidence that necessitates it, and we do not know of its existence. And Allah is the One who grants success.
As for the second question: Its answer is to say: This issue has a famous disagreement among the scholars, and the correct view in that is: The permissibility of establishing the Friday prayer with three or more, if they are settled in a village where the Friday prayer is not established. As for the condition of forty, or twelve, or fewer, or more, for establishing the Friday prayer, there is no reliable evidence for it, as far as we know. Rather, what is obligatory is that it be established in a congregation, and the minimum is three, and this is the saying of a group of scholars, and it was chosen by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah (may Allah have mercy on him), and it is the correct view as mentioned earlier.