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What is the reasoning behind sometimes combining prayer to accommodate events or gatherings ?

Dated: 14/06/1986

Location: The London Mosque

Language: English

Audience: General

What is the reasoning behind sometimes combining prayer to accommodate events or gatherings ?

Now, like yesterday, already we have reached a time when we will have to say the prayers together instead of saying Maghrib separately and Isha separately, we are advancing now towards a time where we will have to say the two prayers together. Now because of this special summer day-night relationship, I think it would not be inadvisable if we fixed a certain period during which we will always say, during Madhya Sefan only, Maghrib and Isha together.

For that there are other considerations as well. You know, after we have finished this session here, people have to return to long distances to their homes. Sometimes they come from East London and sometimes from farther off places. So they would reach home by the time, if immediately after Madhya Sefan they leave, and if they don’t eat here, then they may reach home by 12 o’clock or so. If they wait for the Isha prayer to be said here, then they would reach home even later and it would become very inconvenient. Mostly they leave before Isha prayer. So they miss the Isha prayer in congregation, number one thing, and when they reach home they are not in a fit mood to concentrate on prayer as a man with fresh energy would be able to do.

So keeping these disadvantages of this special time, the special period of summer, I don’t think it would be wrong to say Isha and Maghrib prayers together for a while. When the times change and the relationship between the ratio of day and night becomes more respectable, then we will revert to the old normal ways. Is that, you think, the general consensus of opinion here? Any disagreement on this? No, you don’t have to find excuses there. That was the Promised Messiah’s time and he has mentioned it quite categorically, that this is particularly applying to the Promised Messiah’s time.

But this is a genuine reason, I mean, why to find excuses? This is a genuine reason and for any session which is held for the sake of discussing religion, this is a valid reason because the Promised Messiah has known to have said two prayers together for no other reason but for the reason that he was sitting there discussing important things of Islam and religion. So he merged the two prayers together. So it is not at all against the fundamental teachings of the Holy Quran or the traditions of the Holy Prophet ﷺ.

The convenience and the actual advantages of the people are to be seen. When I came here for the last two years, I generally preferred to say the prayers separately in their time and insisted on it to leave this message to you that you have adopted an easygoing habit vis-à-vis namaz and you should change this attitude. When I came here, I noticed that people would generally, normally say jama, would do jama, would do zuhr, say zuhr as jama with prayer. They would say zuhr and prayer together, asr, I’m sorry, zuhr and asr together and they would say we have made it jama.

And as a routine, they would say maghrib together with isha and call it jama and consider it to be just a legal practice, normal routine practice of Islam. That was wrong. So even when I thought I was permitted to do that, I would forego that permission for the sake of educating you, for the sake of telling you that you prefer saying namaz at its proper time, and do not fall prey to your ego, your inner self, creating excuses for yourself.

Having done that, at times I feel that I have carried it too far, where genuine requirements and necessities demanding jama prayer have also been neglected now, and this is one of the situations where you are sitting late, discussing religion and things of God, and where people would have to go to extra trouble to say their isha prayer after returning home and they can’t say it in congregation anyway. So that disadvantage is greater than saying the isha prayer together with maghrib in congregation.

So I have explained all this background, so for a while, until my next session, considering the relationship as I said, between day and night, we will say only during these sessions, maghrib together with isha.

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