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Can a mother lead her ignorant son?

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Ustadha Shaista Maqbool

Can a Muslim mother lead the prayer for her 22 year old son who doesn’t know enough to pray on his own nor is he able to follow a male figure since there aren’t any present in the household ? IF she is able to lead the prayer in order to teach him, who would be the one to stand in front?

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Kind.

One of the conditions to lead men in prayer is that one must be a man
himself – i.e. it is not valid for a woman to lead a man in prayer.

There is very little that is required to make a prayer valid, it can
be learnt very quickly. One only needs to know one verse consisting of
six letters (not counting vowels) e.g. Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem. This
recitation is sufficient for the person who doesn’t know anything else
and his prayer is valid.

The following is the minimum one needs to make one’s prayer valid:
1 – The person should know which prayer he is prayer, whether it be
Zhuhr or Asr, and how many raka’aat it consists of.
2-He begins with Allahu Akbar, says ArRahman ArRaheem, bows for ruku’,
stands up again and prostrates two times, repeating this (two, three,
or four times – depending upon the prayer) until the last raka’ah
which he sits after the second prostration for about 30 seconds (which
is the time it would take one to read Al-Tahiyah and the testification
if one knew it). That’s it.

As you can see, what one needs to know to pray is very little. This
makes a lot of sense considering that converts are required to start
praying right away – this is how it is possible to do so.

And Allah know best.

Shaista Maqbool

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

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