Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
The schools have been approached to have Jumu’ah at its proper time, but they have been very uncooperative, and rather have created problems such khateebs being hand searched. The recent events don’t help the situation either. The other problem is the students. Most of them don’t pray anyway and to tell them to skip class to pray, is not going to be easy (to put it lightly). To tell them that performance of the jumu’ah prayer before its time invalidates the prayer will give them reason not to attend. Also, to not tell them this, will the khateeb be held accountable for their invalid prayers??? I myself can pray the jumuah prayer at the masjid after the ‘jumuah prayer’ at the high school, but I don’t want to be held accountable for the students’ jumuah prayer.
2. Is Shaikh ‘Abdullah bin Bayyah’s fatwa a viable option in this instance? He is a Mujtahid with ijazas in all four schools, and has ijaza in minority fiqh. Is he a proponent of the Azhari line of thinking?
3. Should this effort to coordinate juma prayers in high schools just be abandoned if the prayer won’t be valid anyway? It is much more convenient for me to go to the Main city mosque (its just a block away from my work) for juma than to go to a high school for juma, but I feel it should be done because it is a void that is not being well-addressed.
The situation in high schools is shocking, at least over here, it is just pure haram. Muslim teenagers are dealing drugs, stealing cars, committing abortions, leaving there families, to mention a few cases. The high schoolers themselves confess their crimes to the khateebs that do the khutbahs at the high schools and ask them for guidance. Recently, one sister approached a khateeb and asked what she should do for her sister who wants to abort her child. A mu’adhdhin has to accompany the khateeb from outside the school purposely because the none of the students of the school know how to make a proper adhan and iqamah. This is the level of the Muslims in the high schools here.
Having a jumu’ah prayer at the school at least allows this generation to have a half hour exposure of Islam, to learn something, to be motivated, it at least gets them to make sujud for one day of the week. This exposure may have a positive effect on them and change their habits, and it has had a positive effect. This is the “greater goal”. I don’t think anyone can understand and appreciate the situation I’m talking about unless they have experienced it.
>>necessary to have the jumu’ah prayer even if it is before the time for prayer because of the greater goal involved. Are hanafis allowed to use this position, and if so, do we have to pray like Hanbalis. What is the “greater goal”?<<
Walaikum assalam,
I don’t know. Simple. What I have learned is that talfiq (joining between the positions of mujtahid imams) is invalid. This is what the Damscene scholars hold; this is what Mufti Mahmoud Usmani said; this is what the traditional texts say. I asked my dear friend, Shaykh Amjad Rasheed, the Shafi`i faqih, and he too said that the only way that praying Jumuah before its time would be valid would be if one fulfilled all the conditions and integrals of the jumuah prayer according to the madhhab that allows it. This is dangerous, because we could be “stealing” people’s prayer if they pray before the time and their prayers are invalid, on top of it.
Anyone who is serious about their deen should have a faqih whom they turn to for guidance in touchy fiqhi issues, just like one takes a murshid for one’s spiritual guidance. As such, I have confidence in my teachers in Damascus, and the great Indo-Pak Hanafis. If someone else follows the opinions of another scholar, Ahlan wa Sahlan. What is important is that one should be sure that the person has knowledge, taqwa, and a sound approach in line with the understanding of traditional Islam. Simple.
As a Hanafi, I would check with the scholars of Damascus or with Mufti Taqi Usmani on this Friday Prayer thing.
Wassalam,
Faraz.