In the Name of Allah, the Most Gra­cious, the Most Merciful.

As-salā­mu ‘alaykum wa-rah­mat­ul­lāhi wa-barakā­tuh (Peace, Bless­ings & Mer­cy of Allah be upon You).

This state­ment is being reis­sued on the 9th of Sep­tem­ber 2020 and super­sedes all pre­vi­ous state­ments on the sub­ject. It is our under­stand­ing that the lat­est restric­tions announced by the British Gov­ern­ment do not apply to places of wor­ship and the guid­ance for Mosques remains unchanged. Mosques should con­tin­ue to ful­ly and com­pre­hen­sive­ly adhere to all Health and Safe­ty guide­lines and safe­ly organ­ise and con­duct con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers.

Com­pre­hen­sive delib­er­a­tions were held between rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Wifaqul Ula­ma and Islam­ic Coun­cil of Europe on the 9th of July 2020 with regards to con­gre­ga­tion­al Jumu’a prayers for the next day and the dai­ly con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers. The fol­low­ing mat­ters were delib­er­at­ed and agreed.

  1. The Fri­day, jumu’a  prayer is one of the key Islam­ic oblig­a­tions and Islam­ic sym­bols, Allah says, 62:9 “O you who have believed, when [the adhan] is called for the prayer on the day of Jumu’ah [Fri­day], then pro­ceed to the remem­brance of Allah and leave trade. That is bet­ter for you, if you only knew”. Abu Hurayrah and Ibn ‘Umar رضي الله عنهم, report­ed that that they heard the Prophetﷺ  say from his min­bar: “Peo­ple should def­i­nite­ly stop neglect­ing Jumu’a, or else Allah will most cer­tain­ly seal their hearts and they will most cer­tain­ly be among the ghaafileen.” [Sahih Mus­lim]. Accord­ing to anoth­er ḥadīth the Prophet ﷺ said: “Who­ev­er neglects three jumu’a out of neg­li­gence will have a seal placed upon his heart.” [Nasa’ī, Abu Da’wūd and Tir­mid­hi]. Fur­ther­more, the Masājid have been closed for a long peri­od of time and the Mus­lims have been suf­fer­ing spir­i­tu­al­ly as a con­se­quence. There­fore, Masājid com­mit­tees in par­tic­u­lar, and all Mus­lim in gen­er­al, should try their absolute upmost to facil­i­tate the estab­lish­ment of jumu’a  for as many wor­ship­pers as they can. It is very like­ly that one jumu’a  will not be enough to accom­mo­date all the con­gre­ga­tions due to the arrange­ments made in order to fol­low the restric­tions and guide­lines pro­vid­ed by local author­i­ties.  There­fore, numer­ous con­gre­ga­tions for the jumu’a prayers should be facil­i­tat­ed after tak­ing the required safe­ty pre­cau­tions into account.
  2. It was agreed that there should be a sep­a­rate khaṭīb deliv­er­ing the khut­ba and salah for each jumu’a. This is the safest approach from a juris­tic per­spec­tive.  There­fore indi­vid­u­als should be trained and pre­pared in order to increase the num­ber of congregations.
  3. The khut­ba length should be adjust­ed accord­ing to cir­cum­stances. There might be a need to short­en the khut­bah as much as required in order to facil­i­tate numer­ous jumu’as. The very basic require­ment of a each of both khut­bahs that make them valid accord­ing to all schools of thoughts is to include hamd and thanā (prais­ing and glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of Allah), the shahā­datayn, durūd and salām on the Prophet  ﷺ, sim­ple instruc­tions that can be deliv­ered by an āya of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth. The Ḥanafī school of thought insists that the khut­ba is to be deliv­ered in Ara­bic. There are numer­ous short khut­bas avail­able online; please con­tact if you require any sup­port in locat­ing them.
  4. It was agreed that if the prayer can­not be con­duct­ed in the Masājid except by prac­tic­ing social dis­tanc­ing then the prayer is valid. It is beyond the scope of this let­ter to detail the proofs behind that.
  5. The oblig­a­tion of attend­ing the con­gre­ga­tion­al prayer is relaxed when it is like­ly to cause harm for your­self or oth­ers. This is based on a very well known max­im that is strong­ly found­ed in the Sharīʿa.  Allah, may He be exalt­ed, says (inter­pre­ta­tion of the meaning):“and do not throw your­selves into destruc­tion” [al-Baqara 2:195]“And do not kill your­selves (nor kill one anoth­er). Sure­ly, Allah is Most Mer­ci­ful to you” [an-Nisa’ 4:29].It was nar­rat­ed from Abu Sa‘eed al-Khu­dri رضي الله عنه  that the Prophet ﷺ said:“There should be nei­ther harm­ing nor rec­i­p­ro­cat­ing harm.” [al-Hākim 2/57–58].When the per­son leaves such impor­tant ibā­da due to a valid excuse, such as ill­ness, he will be grant­ed the reward as if he did it. Abu Mūsā al-Ash’ari رضي الله عنه report­ed that the Prophet ﷺ said: “If a per­son gets sick or trav­els, he will have the same reward as when he was healthy or not trav­el­ling.” [al-Bukhari, 2834].

We appeal to all Mus­lims to be grate­ful to Allah for per­mit­ting us to wor­ship Him in His blessed places. We repent and ask for for­give­ness for our short­com­ings. We ask Allah to remove this calami­ty and return the nor­mal­i­ty we expe­ri­enced and unfor­tu­nate­ly were not appre­cia­tive of.

Mufti Amjad Mohammed | Shaykh Haitham al-Haddad

Qārī Mohammed Shoyaib
Mufti Zakariya Akudi
Mufti Zubair Dudha
Shaykh Shaqur ur-Rahman
Shaykh Fraz Farhat
Shaykh Fuad Abdo

Advi­so­ry for Mosques

There has been a shift in the past few months from ‘lock down’ to ‘Stay­ing alert and safe’. The changed guid­ance from the Gov­ern­ment and Pub­lic Health Eng­land in par­tic­u­lar should be reg­u­lar­ly reviewed and fol­lowed by all Mosques.

It is nec­es­sary for our homes to con­tin­ue to be bea­cons of light and guid­ance. In these try­ing times, it is more nec­es­sary than ever to turn towards Allāh Ta’āla in repen­tance, and stren­u­ous­ly engage in acts of wor­ship, char­i­ty and prayers for every­one. In addi­tion, every­one is urged to pro­vide sup­port to each oth­er in the com­mu­ni­ties so we can all get through these try­ing times.

Insha’Al­lah, we will emerge from this pan­dem­ic, but let’s all stand togeth­er and face this chal­lenge with uni­ty and dis­ci­pline while keep­ing true to the teach­ings of our religion.

Thus the advi­so­ry for the Mosque has been revised as follows:

    1. Pub­lic con­gre­ga­tions Salāh should con­tin­ue while fol­low­ing the lat­est Health & Safe­ty guid­ance from the Gov­ern­ment. Use the Radio trans­mit­ters or the Inter­net to con­tin­ue to edu­cate the British Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties. We urge Schol­ars to increase live inter­ac­tions using Social Media (i.e. Face­book, Twit­ter, YouTube etc) and oth­er tech­ni­cal aids at their disposal.
    2. Activ­i­ties relat­ing to chil­dren and the Mak­tab can also con­tin­ue and where not fea­si­ble, they should con­tin­ue remote­ly. We have reviewed sev­er­al tools which can be used for this purpose.
    3. Sunnāh and oth­er non-oblig­a­tory prayers should be done at Home. 
    4. Those who are iso­lat­ed at home should pray the Dho­har Salāh on Fri­day instead of Jumuāh.

Health & Safe­ty Caveat & Coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) at risk group:

  1. Any­one in their 70s or under 70 with the fol­low­ing conditions;
  2. Any­one being seri­ous­ly over­weight, for exam­ple with a body mass index (BMI) of 40 or more.
  3. Any­one instruct­ed to get a flu jab as an adult each year on med­ical grounds.
  4. Any­one with an impaired immune sys­tem as the result of con­di­tions such as HIV and AIDS, or med­i­cines such as steroid tablets or chemotherapy.
  5. Any­one with diabetes.
  6. Any­one with prob­lems with their spleen, for exam­ple Sick­le Cell dis­ease or have had their spleen removed.
  7. Any­one with under­ly­ing lung con­di­tions or chron­ic (long term) res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases such as Asth­ma, chron­ic obstruc­tive pul­monary dis­ease (COPD), emphy­se­ma or bronchitis.
  8. Any­one with chron­ic heart dis­ease such as heart failure.
  9. Any­one with chron­ic kid­ney disease.
  10. Any­one with chron­ic liv­er dis­ease such as hepatitis.
  11. Any­one with chron­ic neu­ro­log­i­cal con­di­tion such as Parkin­son’s dis­ease, motor neu­ron dis­ease, mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS), a learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ty or cere­bral palsy
  12. Any­one with cancer.
  13. Those liv­ing with some­one who is in a risk category.
  14. Those who can­not avoid being in con­tact with some­one at risk.

Spir­i­tu­al Action Plan

  1. All Mus­lims are urged to turn towards Allāh Ta’āla in repen­tance and seek forgiveness.
  2. All Mus­lims are urged to incul­cate and adopt the noble and blessed Sunnāh of Prophet Muham­mad (Peace be upon Him) in all aspects of their lives.
  3. All Mus­lims are urged to be par­tic­u­lar­ly dili­gent and atten­tive in their five dai­ly prayers.
  4. All Mus­lims are urged to set aside some time dai­ly in recita­tion of the Qurān and engage in Dhīkr (remem­brance) and adhkār (lita­nies and invo­ca­tions) which are from the Qurān and the Sunnāh.
  5. There are some spe­cial and par­tic­u­lar Duās from the Sunnāh which should be par­tic­u­lar­ly and fre­quent­ly recit­ed at this time, they are as follows:

بِسْمِ اللهِ الَّذِي لاَ يَضُرُّ مَعَ اسْمِهِ شَيْءٌ فِي الأَرْضِ وَلاَ فِي السَّمَاءِ وَهُوَ السَّمِيعُ الْعَلِيمُ، لَمْ يَضُرَّهُ شَيْءٌ‏‏

In the Name of Allāh with Whose Name there is pro­tec­tion against every kind of harm in the earth or in the heav­en, and He is the All-Hear­ing and All- Knowing

أَعُوذُ بِكَلِمَاتِ اللَّهِ التَّامَّاتِ مِنْ شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ

I seek refuge in the Per­fect Words of Allāh from the evil of what He has created

اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنَ الْجُنُونِ وَالْجُذَامِ وَالْبَرَصِ وَسَيِّيءِ الأَسْقَامِ ‏

O Allāh, I seek refuge in You from vitili­go, mad­ness, lep­rosy, and bad diseases.

Posi­tion on Mosque, Adhān and con­gre­ga­tion­al Salāh

Mosques are spe­cial places where the Mer­cy and Bless­ings of Allāh Ta’āla descends upon, enrich­ing those who fre­quent them. Each and every step tak­en towards the House of Allāh Ta’āla is mer­i­to­ri­ous and vir­tu­ous. In addi­tion Adhān and con­gre­ga­tion­al Salāh are spe­cial salient fea­tures and man­i­fes­ta­tions of Islām which need to be practiced. 

أَخْبَرَنَا سُوَيْدُ بْنُ نَصْرٍ، قَالَ أَنْبَأَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ الْمُبَارَكِ، عَنْ زَائِدَةَ بْنِ قُدَامَةَ، قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا السَّائِبُ بْنُ حُبَيْشٍ الْكَلاَعِيُّ، عَنْ مَعْدَانَ بْنِ أَبِي طَلْحَةَ الْيَعْمَرِيِّ، قَالَ قَالَ لِي أَبُو الدَّرْدَاءِ أَيْنَ مَسْكَنُكَ قُلْتُ فِي قَرْيَةٍ دُوَيْنَ حِمْصَ ‏.‏ فَقَالَ أَبُو الدَّرْدَاءِ سَمِعْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم يَقُولُ ‏ “‏ مَا مِنْ ثَلاَثَةٍ فِي قَرْيَةٍ وَلاَ بَدْوٍ لاَ تُقَامُ فِيهِمُ الصَّلاَةُ إِلاَّ قَدِ اسْتَحْوَذَ عَلَيْهِمُ الشَّيْطَانُ فَعَلَيْكُمْ بِالْجَمَاعَةِ فَإِنَّمَا يَأْكُلُ الذِّئْبُ الْقَاصِيَةَ ‏”‏ ‏.‏ قَالَ السَّائِبُ يَعْنِي بِالْجَمَاعَةِ الْجَمَاعَةَ فِي الصَّلاَةِ ‏

It was nar­rat­ed that Ma’din bin Abi Tal­hah Al-Ya’­muri (RA) said: “Abu Ad-Dar­da (RA) said to me: ‘Where do you live?’ I said: ‘In a town near Hims.’ Abu Ad-Dar­da (RA) said: ‘I heard the Mes­sen­ger of Allāh Ta’āla (Peace be upon Him) say: “There are no three peo­ple in a town or encamp­ment among whom prayer is not estab­lished, but the Dev­il takes con­trol of them. There­fore, stick to the con­gre­ga­tion, for the wolf eats the sheep that strays off on its own.” (One of the nar­ra­tors (As Sa’ib) said: “The con­gre­ga­tion means the con­gre­ga­tion­al prayer.”) [Sunan an-Nasa’i]

We have to review the lat­est med­ical advice and bal­ance it against the teach­ings and com­mand­ments of Islām.

Guid­ance in case of restric­tions on reli­gious places of worship:

It is our guid­ance that if restric­tions on places of wor­ship are reim­posed, con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers should be con­tin­ued by key work­ers. The instruc­tions in this sec­tion will only apply if the restric­tions are reim­posed.

Those who vol­un­teer to pray with the Imām should be clear of all symp­toms and not be part of Coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) at risk group. They should not be expect­ed to put their own health on the line for the sake of keep­ing the Mosque open.

Mosques should con­tin­ue to call the Adhān for five times dai­ly con­gre­ga­tion­al prayers and the Jumuāh (Fri­day) prayers with the fol­low­ing change:

حي على الصلاة
حي على الصلاة

حي على الفلاح
حي على الفلاح

The fol­low­ing should be proclaimed:

صَلُّوا فِي رِحَالِكُمْ

صَلُّوا فِي رِحَالِكُمْ

Con­gre­ga­tion­al Fardh (oblig­a­tory) Salāh Procedure:

This is a brief reminder of the Masāil (issues) regard­ing con­gre­ga­tion­al Fardh (oblig­a­tory) Salāh. It should be remem­bered that Salāh done in con­gre­ga­tion is supe­ri­or to Salāh done individually.

Ibn Umar (RA) nar­rat­ed that Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (Peace be upon Him) said: “Salah in con­gre­ga­tion is twen­ty-sev­en degrees more vir­tu­ous than a man’s Salah alone” 1

This guid­ance (below) is gen­er­al and not spe­cif­ic to restric­tions due to Coro­n­avirus (COVID-19). Con­gre­ga­tion­al Fardh (oblig­a­tory) Salāh can be divid­ed into 3 main sce­nar­ios when it comes to arrang­ing the rows, as follows:

Sce­nario 1: Imam and one male adult or minor

Ibn Abbas (RA) nar­rat­ed that “I stayed overnight with my mater­nal aunt Maimu­nah, and the Prophet (Peace be upon Him) got up dur­ing the night to per­form prayer. So I got up and stood on his left. He took me by the hand and made me stand on his right.” 2

From this Hādith we learn that if there is an Imām and only one male Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er), it is best to stand to the right of the Imām. It is how­ev­er per­mis­si­ble if nec­es­sary, that the Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er) stands either to the left or behind the Imam. 3

It is prefer­able that the Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er) stands par­al­lel (in line) with the Imām, ensur­ing that he does not advance the Imām, as advanc­ing the Imām will inval­i­date the Salāh of the Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er). Alter­na­tive­ly, he may also stand a lit­tle behind the Imām in a man­ner that the toes of the Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er) are in line with the heal of the Imām. 4

Females in all cas­es will stand in the row behind the Imām.

Sce­nario 2: Imam and 2 males; adults or minors

Samu­rah bin Jun­dub nar­rat­ed that “Allah’s Mes­sen­ger (Peace be upon Him) ordered us when we were three, that one of us (the Imam) should stand for­ward.” 5

From this Hādith we learn that when there is an Imām and two male Muq­ta­di (fol­low­ers), the Imām will stand in front and the two male Muq­ta­di (fol­low­ers) behind the Imām.

If due to neces­si­ty, for exam­ple a lack of space, the Muq­ta­di (fol­low­er) stand to the right and left of the Imām, then this is also per­mis­si­ble. It has been report­ed that Abdul­lah bin Mas’ud (RA) led Alqamah (RA) and al-Aswad (RA) in prayer. He stood one to his right and the oth­er to his left. He then attrib­uted this to the Prophet.

Sce­nario 3: Imam with two or more males and females

It was nar­rat­ed from Anas bin Malik, that his grand­moth­er Mulaikah (RA) invit­ed the Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Peace be upon Him) to come and eat some food that she had pre­pared for him. Then he said: Anas (RA) nar­rat­ed “Get up and I will lead you in prayer.” Anas (RA) said: “So I got up and brought a reed mat of ours that had turned black from long use, and spread some water on it. The Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Peace be upon Him) stood and the orphan and I stood in a row behind him, and the old woman stood behind us, and he led us in pray­ing two Rak’ahs, then he left.” 6

From this Hādith we learn that when the con­gre­ga­tion is a mix­ture of males and females, the order of rows will be as fol­lows: Males, then the chil­dren and then the females. Chil­dren can also be joined with the males due to space restric­tions etc.

Coro­n­avirus (Covid19) Advi­so­ry Revi­sion History

DateVer­sionHis­to­ry & Changes
17 March 20200.1First Cir­cu­la­tion of Advisory
18 March 20200.2Word­ing in the advi­sories tweaked and release time changed from 20:00 to 19:00 at the request of some Imams
19 March 20200.3No Change
20 March 20200.4Advi­so­ry added after review­ing Pub­lic Health advi­sories sent by some local cities and councils
21 March 20200.5Advi­so­ry not issued due to ongo­ing delib­er­a­tions between Ula­ma and Health Experts
22 March 20200.6Guid­ance revised after exten­sive discussions. 
08 June 20200.7Guid­ance after review­ing Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als for Places of Worship 
09 July 20200.8Wifaqul Ula­ma and Islam­ic Coun­cil of Europe
09 Sep­tem­ber 20200.9Wifaqul Ula­ma

 

 

  1. Tir­mid­hi: 211 ↩
  2. Tir­mid­hi: 231 ↩
  3. Tuh­fah al-Alma’i: 1/561 ↩
  4. Tuh­fah al-Alma’i: 1/561 ↩
  5. Tir­mid­hi: 232 ↩
  6. Tir­mid­hi: 234 ↩

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