The Ruling on Praying with Those Who Adhere to Religious Innovation

Question:
What is the ruling for a resident in a country where the people are clinging 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 sinful. If the imam’s innovation does not take him out of Islam, then one prays behind him. It was narrated by Makhlad from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) , and al-Daraqutni reported it, saying: Makhlad did not meet Abu Hurayrah, and in its chain is Mu’awiyah ibn Salih, about whom scholars have spoken, and Muslim used it as evidence in his Sahih. Al-Daraqutni also reported it, as did Abu Dawud, from Makhlad from Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) , saying: 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 him) , that 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 someone from whom he does not know of any innovation or open sinfulness, by the consensus of the imams. It is not a condition of following an imam that the follower knows the imam’s belief, nor that he tests him by asking, “What do you believe?” Rather, he prays behind the 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, who is the regular imam behind whom he cannot pray except him, such as the imam of the Friday and Eid prayers, or the imam in the prayer at ‘Arafah during Hajj, or the like, 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 sinful imam is an innovator according to most scholars. The correct view is that he prays it and does not repeat it. The Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) used to pray the Friday and congregational prayers behind the sinful imams and did not repeat them, just as Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) used to pray behind al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, and 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 for four rak’ahs and then said, “Shall I add more for you?” Ibn Mas’ud said to him, “We have been with you since this morning in addition [to the prescribed amount].” And in the Sahih, it is stated that when Uthman (may Allah be pleased with him) was besieged, a certain person prayed with the people, and 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 nephew, prayer is among the best of what people do. So if they do it well, do well with them, and if they do it badly, avoid their badness.”
The prayer of the open sinner and the innovator is valid in itself. So if the follower prays behind him, his prayer is not invalidated. However, the reason those who disliked praying behind him did so is that enjoining good and forbidding evil is obligatory.
From this: if a person displays innovation and sinfulness, he is not to be appointed as an imam for the Muslims; rather, he 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, thereby affect the forbidding of evil until he repents, or is removed, or people stop doing something like his sin, then in such a case, leaving the prayer behind him has a legal benefit, and the follower does not miss the Friday or congregational prayer.
As for when leaving the prayer behind him causes the follower to miss the Friday and congregational prayer, 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 one who displays 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 causing 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 Shari’ahs came to obtain benefits and perfect them, and to disable harms and reduce them to the extent possible. So missing the congregations is a greater corruption than following the sinful imam in them, especially if leaving them does not repel a sin, so the legal benefit is disabled without repelling that harm.
As for when it is possible to perform the Friday and congregational prayer behind the righteous, that is better than performing it behind the sinful one. And at that time, if one prays behind the sinful one without an excuse, it is a matter of scholarly ijtihad. Some said he should repeat it, and some said he should not repeat it. The detailed discussion of this 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, based on 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 requires it, and we do not know of its existence. And Allah is the One who grants success.
As for the second question, the answer is to say: This issue has a well-known disagreement among the scholars, and the correct view 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. This is the view 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.