Answered by Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Translated by Shaykh Hamza Karamali, SunniPath Academy Teacher
I am a student at a university in a small university town in America. The only Muslims in the town are the Muslims who are students at the university. The MSA organizes the Friday prayer for students every week. I have learned that in the Shafi`i school, it is obligatory for me to perform the Friday prayer whenever I intend to stay in a place for more than four days. I have also learned that the Friday prayer is only valid if the congregation contains 40 people who are permanent residents of the city. Since none of the students are permanent residents—all of them intend to go back to their homes after completing their studies at the university—does that mean that the Friday prayers are not valid?
The more correct (asahh) position in our school—as stated by Imam Nawawi in the Majmu` and the Rawda—is that the Friday prayer is only validly established if there are at least 40 permanent residents in the congregation. Our scholars explain that a permanent resident is someone who doesn’t travel from the city unless he needs to fulfill some need. This is in opposition to non-permanent residents, who enter a city to fulfill a need and intend to leave it when their need is fulfilled (e.g. a student at a university who intends to leave when he finished studying or a businessman who intends to leave when his business is finished). According to the more correct (asahh) position in our school, non-permanent residents who intend to stay in a place for more than four days are obliged to perform the Friday prayer, but they don’t count as one of the 40 permanent residents who are required in order for the prayer to be validly established.
There is, however, another opposing position in our school (muqabil al-asahh) that states that the Friday prayer is, in fact, validly established by non-permanent residents. This position observes that both permanent and non-permanent residents are obliged to perform the Friday prayer and then uses analogy to conclude that the Friday prayer should be effected by non-permanent residents just as it is effected by permanent residents. Imam Nawawi holds that this position applies both to travelers whose duration of residence is short—like travelers who only intend to stay in a city for four days—and to travelers whose duration of stay is long—such as businessmen or students. This is a strong position in our school that is permissible to follow in one’s personal practice, and based on this position, the Friday prayer that you describe would be validly established by the students at the university.
السؤال: هل عندنا قولٌ يحوز تقليده يصحح انعقاد الجمعة بالمقيمين فقط وليسوا مستوطنين؟
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