 Salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Welcome to Ahkam S.O.S. A show that discusses Islamic duties and practices by His Eminence, the Grand Ayatullah, Sayyed Sadik Shirazi, may Allah put it on his life. I'm your host, Mohsin Shah, and joining me as always is Sheikh Ali Ma'ash. Salamu alaykum Sheikh Ma'ash. Salamun alaykum wa rahmatullah. Sheikh Rao, we've been discussing Jama'a Salah and also the Imam of the Jama'a Salah. And the question I wanted to ask you was, is it sufficient for us when we identify an Imam for the Salah, that he knows between Haram and Halal and he knows the Ahkaab laws, is that sufficient? And we know a little bit about his background. Is that okay, or do we have to do a very, very thorough background check on his Adalah and on his knowledge of Islam? I seek refuge with Allah from Satan. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. All praise be to Allah, Lord of all the worlds. I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed. Well, with regard to your question, yes, you can rely on this aspect of, I mean, the righteousness of this person. Overall, you have friends who, let's say, pray behind him, or you know the Imam roughly, that he is a person, a pious person, he comes to the Marqas or to the Mosque. And in overall, you know that this person's conduct and character is a good character and conduct. You can rely on it and pray behind him, that's fine, there's no issue with it. And what if I doubt the Imam, if I doubt that, oh, this person may not be righteous or he might not have the correct Qara'ah and maybe he'll make mistakes in Salah, is it okay for me to follow this Imam in the Jama'a or should I pray Farada? With regard to the first part of the question, you must achieve and you must acquire the Adalah of this individual, this Imam. In other words, you cannot just follow an Imam that you're in doubt of. You never know him and those who pray behind him, you don't know them. Let's say you go to a village, go to a city and you go to a mosque and you see people are praying and Imam is there and you have some doubts. You cannot just follow that Imam, an individual and pray behind him. So you have to acquire and attain that this person has Adalah and he's righteous. Otherwise you cannot pray. Unless we have in Frikh what is known as Ihrāz-ul-Adalah, that you have to attain the Adalah, that he has these features and conditions of the Adalah mentioned in the last episode. With regard to the second part of the question, there's no issue with it if you have doubts about that if he read correctly or not. No, that's fine, you can follow him. I mean, the Salā is correct, there's no issue with it. It's just a doubt about his recitation. There's no issue. Unless it's real, you can hear him that he's reading the words or letters mistakenly, then you have to correct it by yourself. And if that continues, then you cannot follow this Imam because he's not reading properly. He doesn't know the rules and the qawā'id of the Arabic language, for example. The Quranic language, the Quranic verses. In this case, you cannot follow him. That's right, that's right. Shaykhna, a bit of a controversial question. There is an individual who meets the criteria of being an Imam of the Jama'a. Maybe he's righteous and he knows all the Ahqām and all the other guys to Salā. But he follows a marjah that some may say is questionable or some may say is not a marjah of Adālā or a marjah of qualification. Is it okay for me to pray behind this individual? The Sayyid says that you have to go back to the conditions and the criteria of the Adālā. If he meets those criteria, that's fine, you can follow him. Regardless of who he follows as a marjah. For example, his adolescence, he's sane, he's Shi'at-Nu'ashari, he's adil of legitimate birth and he performs the Salā correctly without any mistakes. In this case, you can follow him, that's fine. Whoever he follows as a marjah, there's no issue with it. So based on that also, giving the benefit of the doubt and making sure that this person is trustworthy and so forth. What about if I visited a new mosque and I don't know the Imam of the Jama'a? But I see that quite a lot of people are praying behind this person. So is that okay for me to join? Is that enough indication that this person is trustworthy and worthy of being prayed behind? Because obviously I haven't got time to actually go and investigate. And the Jama'a has already started as well, the Salā has already started. So is that okay for me to join that Jama'a? You see, as mentioned many times with regard to this condition that righteousness or the adālah is to do with practicing the good and obligatory acts such as Salā, psalām and so forth and refraining from the evil acts such as drinking alcohol, listening to music and so forth. If the Imam is adil, in other words, has taqwa, piety and he refrains from these forbidden acts and he applies and implements the wajib acts and in overall he is recognized through good practices. People know him that he is of good akhlaq, of good practice in amal. In overall you can follow that Imam, that's fine. As I've said, you must achieve and attain that he is adil by looking at the people around him, maybe by asking him for example or asking others about him and so forth. That should really solve the situation and we don't have to go through in-depth research about his background and what he did, what he was. It's just the apparent adālah will be sufficient. What happens when I follow an Imam in Salā? But the Imam was praying a nafila prayer or he wasn't praying, he was praying a different prayer to me. Do I have to repeat my Salā? No, it is not wajib and obligatory for the one who prayed behind an Imam who used to pray nafila to repeat the Salā, that's fine. There's no issue with it. Because your intention was to follow the Imam in the obligatory Salā and he was praying nafila, so that's fine. You follow and pray whatever you prayed and the Imam, whatever he prayed, that's fine. Sheikh Naqt, we are praying behind an Imam and this person's Imam recites some of the words incorrectly. What are we supposed to do as followers of the Jama'at? In this case, if these words were recited mistakenly in the wrong way then you as a follower, as a ma'amūm, should correct it by reciting by yourself. So you correct it by for yourself. So let's say if he said, ma'alaka yawmud-dīn, not ma'alaka yawmud-dīn. So you have to recite by yourself ma'alaka yawmud-dīn. So correct that mistake that the Imam did by reading it in the right way. Sheikh Naqt, what happens if I'm praying behind an Imam, I'm praying Maghrib Salā and I'm not 100% happy with the Imam that he prayed the Maghrib prayer correctly. Am I supposed to repeat my prayer? Not at all because you have doubts about this issue. So the Salā is valid and you can just go with the Salā you prayed. That's fine. There's no issue. There's no repeat for it. Sheikh Naqt, what is the duty of a ma'amūm when he notices or identifies that the Imam has mispronounced or said something incorrectly in the Salā? Should he correct the Imam or should he just correct himself? Sometimes you see the Imam, he forgets for example to do the act of Qunūt for example or he stands up for the third raka'a without doing tashahūt. In this case, as I've said, you cannot follow the Imam in his mistakes but the best thing is to remind the Imam by saying Allahu Akbar for example you try to remind the Imam and telling him that you should stand or sit in this position or do the Qunūt or leave the Qunūt if it's not in its right location. Just to remind him that what you did was not in the right place and usually the Imam would recognize quickly and they would try to correct the fault straight away. What about if it's like a Quranic verse, if they're reciting the Surah and maybe they forget an aya or something, is it mandatory upon us to indicate and identify that you've said something wrong? For example, they might say, should we be saying should we be sharing that out to the Imam? As I've said, you have to for yourself read out this incorrect or missed aya for yourself. So you read this out for yourself and the Imam has his own haqqum because he didn't know or he didn't actually, he just made a mistake in which he didn't recognize. So for yourself, you read the aya again and you correct it. Sheikhla, how do we pray foradah jama'a? I mean when we come into the mosque and we want to pray foradah, is it okay to stand with the congregation but pray foradah or should we be separate and pray separately on our own? We have to make sure that when we go for such places where the jama'a prayer is held and people are praying in jama'a and I want to pray quickly and leave the mosque. I have to make sure that I do not insult the Imam of the jama'a or the jama'a itself or the mosque itself by praying alone and foradah away from the jama'a. Sometimes it brings some kind of, it gives a bad image to the mosque for example that there is a jama'a and this individual is praying alone or sometimes you see there are two groups, one group foradah, one group jama'a and that's of course not accepted if it's causing some kind of harm to the Imam of the jama'a or some kind of insult, disrespect for example. No, you cannot actually do this. The best thing is to pray somewhere else or after the jama'a when they finish or the best thing is to pray with the jama'a to get the reward and it's just a few minutes you would be more delayed unless you are in an urgent situation then maybe you can pray at home or somewhere else away from this jama'a because if you break the sanctity of the mosque and the jama'a then that's by itself some kind of disobedience and that's not right. So we try to either pray the jama'a or stay away from this jama'a and pray somewhere else and keep the sanctity of the jama'a prayer in that center of that mosque. Shehna what if I've come into the mosque and jama'a Salat is going on and if I'm in a hurry and I know I can pray foradah before the jama'a finishes this Salat however the me praying foradah will lead to insulting the imam or the congregation am I still allowed to pray foradah? You cannot insult the imam jama'a or the group who are following the imam no you cannot. So you have to make sure as I've said to find somewhere else and pray or pray afterwards when they finish or pray between the two Salah when they do the kure tasbihat al-Zahra alaihi s-salam you start praying your wajah prayer and then you leave straight away. That's it thank you very much Shehna and thank you to all the viewers for joining us on this discussion inshallah we'll have new topics and more discussions in the following Ahqam SOS episodes until then we would like to encourage you guys to join the jama'a and not to pray foradah inshallah with your brothers and sisters to create some sort of unity and community with the Shia inshallah until the next episode Asalaamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh