Ahmadi friends, and that is, when an appointed imam of a mosque has already led a congregational prayer in a mosque, can another party of Muslims, arriving later, have the same prayer in congregation, for example Asr prayer, led by another person in the same mosque? Secondly, very often the Eid prayer is said more than once due to lack of space in the place of prayer, or for some other reasons. As I think, in both the cases… Shall we go bit by bit, please? Don’t pack so many questions in one question.
Let’s first answer the first part, and then when I’ve finished answering you, then you can turn to the next one, please. Right? Yes, Huzoor. The first question which has been asked by you, or the first part, I should say, of a bigger question, is that in one mosque, the same prayer, can the same prayer be repeated in congregation or not? That is to say, in Maghrib prayer, for instance, if an imam has led the Maghrib prayer, can another party say the same Maghrib prayer, in the same mosque, after the first congregation prayer? Is that right? Yes, Huzoor. Okay. The fact is that the mosques are symbols of unity, and the congregation prayer is also a symbol of unity.
So anything which can promote a habit contrary to this, or detrimental to this cause, should not at all be encouraged. So people living in the vicinity of a mosque should be led by one imam, and one prayer should be said once in congregation, by the people living in that locality. Otherwise this disorder would be created, otherwise the community living in the vicinity of that mosque may be divided into factions, some liking one imam and the others liking another, and creating small factions within the community. And then there would be infights, this imam should lead prayer, or the other imam should lead first prayer, who would be given the preference and all that.
In disorganized communities, this actually is happening, even in England, among the non-Ahmadis, you come across daily such sad, tragic news, as people fought fierce battles with each other, because some preferred one imam to the other, and so on and so forth, and some said we should say prayer first, you should say later on, and such quarrels arose out of this general permission. So Islam does not promote any disorderly behavior, this is why it should be the part of our decorum to say one congregation prayer in one mosque.
That applies to the normal routines. But if you are traveling, if you are on a journey, and you happen to go by a mosque, and with the permission of the owners of that mosque, or the organizers of that mosque, you say your prayer in congregation, there is no harm, whatsoever. In Masjid Mubarak II, it has been a tradition that non-Ahmadis, when they visit us, they are permitted to say their prayer in congregation, in Masjid Mubarak Rabwah, because they don’t say their prayer behind our imam, they prefer to say their own, so we do not stop them, because by doing so we do not create disorder in the local society at all.
There is no harm, no danger whatsoever. So if there is no danger, if there is no harm, then saying congregation prayers twice or three times in a mosque, by itself is not a crime. In itself, it should be permissible. Unless it can create some disorder or some other, you know, wrong tendencies. So subject to that, this is permissible. And as I have told you, sometimes it happened that a party went out and returned from the journey, even those who lived, who were Ahmadis and lived in the vicinity, and they missed the congregation prayer, not because they were present and they should have attended that prayer in time and they ignored it, not because of that, but because they returned from a journey.
For instance, we used to go on Ansarullah trips or Waqf-e-Jadid trips and so on. We returned to Rabwah, after a prayer had already been said, and because it was a party on Allah’s job, Allah’s work, so we decided we should say our prayer in the mosque. So nobody took exception to that.
Nobody objected to it and we did it in congregation with one precaution, that when we said, and this precaution was always taken by every party which I have observed doing this, instead of their imam standing in the central place of the mosque, occupying the same central position where normally the imam leads the prayers, they would go humbly to one corner of the mosque and say their prayer there, so that any observer should not think that the central prayer is being said here. He should know that this is just a secondary prayer and not the one which is normally held in routine and officially in that mosque.
So in the light of all this, you should, you know, practice whatever you want to. He is a specialist in traditions of the Prophet, this is his subject, specialised subject, so he remembers the appropriate traditions at the right time. He has just remembered one tradition which applies to this situation. Once the Prophet, after saying prayer in congregation, he was sitting with his companions in the mosque and a person came later in the mosque and he said his prayer alone.
Huzoor was watching all this, his prayer, when he finished Huzoor said, you said your prayer not in congregation, singly, so Huzoor said who will share with him in congregational prayer and get the reward of the prayer. So Abu Bakr r.a, we stood and he offered. So that again applies to that special situation.
Somebody from outside Medina, visited Medina and because he was a traveller, he did not know the times and he could not attend the prayer, congregational prayer led by Allah s.w.t. So not only did he permit him but encouraged him and provided him with a companion so that his prayer could be turned into a congregational prayer.
