Why, when we are gathered in your assembly, do we pray in our place and not go to the mosque to pray?

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : An interjected question... the adhan... by saying that Shaykh Al-Albani was sitting during the adhan... could you please clarify that for us?

The Shaykh: Yes.

The questioner : ... .

The Shaykh: Yes.
The student : ... .

The Shaykh : The principle, without a doubt, and what we consistently and always adhere to, is that the five prayers are to be performed in the mosques. This is among the obligations that many Muslims neglect, and this is not permissible. However, every rule has exceptions, as mentioned in some hadiths: , . This, of course, has a second level of detail, but the point is: . The excuse varies from person to person. Some of these excuses are clear and evident to everyone, such as a man who is ill, or a blind man who has no guide to lead him, where the road is rough and difficult, and it is hard for him because he is not accustomed to going to such distant places. This is very rare, so one might say this is an excuse. Meanwhile, the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) did not excuse 'Amr ibn al-'As, despite some of these conditions being present, because it appears he was accustomed to walking, as we see in many people afflicted with this condition. I want to say that some of these excuses are clear and evident, while others are relative, meaning not everyone can feel that it is an excuse. Here comes the principle of . So, if one finds an excuse in himself, Allah (Mighty and Majestic), if He knows that from him, will not hold him accountable; otherwise, He will hold him accountable. We come to the original question and its answer after this introduction. Personally, for about ten years, in this kind of gathering, we would hear the adhan and we would all go out to the mosque. But after that, or before that, I would go out alone, implementing the legal ruling, and I am subject to it, but in my heart, I felt that this, for example, breaks the congregation and scatters the topic and distracts from it. But the ruling is this, so we would head to the mosque no matter how large the gathering was. Then, a person, no matter how much he learns, remains ignorant of what we discovered in the book *Al-Jarh wa al-Ta'dil* by Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi, which is one of the old, ancient books of biographies of hadith narrators. I started reading in its introduction, where it mentions biographies of many of the imams of the Sunnah, and specifically Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. I found there the following: "They were in an assembly studying knowledge, so the adhan for the midday prayer was called. One of the attendees reminded Imam Ahmad and others that the prayer had arrived, and suggested that we go out to the mosque. Imam Ahmad said, 'We are now in the obedience of Allah and in His worship, and we will pray here.'" When I read this text about the Imam of the Sunnah, as I mentioned to you just now, regarding taking less than a handful, I said, "Now my heart is at ease. The Imam of the Sunnah finds that gathering in the Sunnah is considered an excuse for leaving the congregation—not leaving the congregation absolutely, but leaving the congregation for a congregation." We derived this from this narration. Then, we observe that the situation today in these mosques, as you heard just now before the adhan, is that these mosques are full of religious innovations and newly invented matters. If we wanted to expand on the jurisprudence and respond to what the presence of such innovations in the mosques requires, we would not pray in a mosque, because it was reported from Ibn 'Umar, mentioned earlier, in *Sunan Abu Dawud* with a strong chain, that "he entered a mosque and heard a man saying, 'Prayer, prayer.' He said to those with him, 'Come, let us go out of the mosque. We will not pray in a mosque that has an innovation.'" But we say, if we wanted to apply this, we would abandon the mosques and suspend the congregation, and this is not permissible in Islam, of course, no matter how much these people indulge in innovating in the religion. But if such an occasion is found, and as we mentioned to you earlier regarding Imam Ahmad, and then there are violations in these mosques that were not there before, such as the imam who leads people today may be illiterate and not good at recitation, or he may be a reader but not good in creed, and so on. So, the least we can say is that we find an excuse, O Shaykh Ahmad, to pray in this place, especially since our congregation here is larger and better, if Allah wills.
The student : My lord, since I am the imam of the mosque and I have an extra key to the mosque, after we finish the session, if Allah wills, we will go to the mosque, because it is more spacious for prayer than here.

The Shaykh : You are the imam today, but tomorrow it will be said, "Let's go to Kash."
The student : ... .

The Shaykh : Kash, kash, you don't know what "kash" means in our language.
The student: Hehehe.

The Shaykh : This "kash" means we drive away the chickens.
The student: Hehehe.

The Shaykh : Fine, if we delay the prayer, there is nothing wrong... the 'Isha' prayer until the sunnah.
The student: Yes.

The Shaykh : Continue.