Don’t ruin your Jumu’a

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the honourable Prophet and the messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and may he be the protector of the light, for him is much, much. My brothers and sisters, a friend of mine asked me to speak about the special nature of Salatul Jum'ah, because there is all kinds of confusion about how it is to be prayed and the rules that pertain to it, and so to clarify any of those doubts. Now the Jum'ah, Salatul Jum'ah is a special prayer with its own rules. Jum'ah is not Dhuhr. It's a special prayer that is prayed instead of and in the place of Dhuhr. Among its rules are the following. Number one, Jum'ah is prayed only in congregation, only in Jama'at. You cannot pray Jum'ah on your own. If you can't find a congregation, a Jama'at for Jum'ah, then you have to pray Dhuhr Salat instead of Jum'ah. In Jum'ah, there is a Khutbah before the Salat. This is in two parts, with a sitting between them. Number three, Jum'ah Salat is prayed aloud, where the Imam recites the Quran aloud and not silently, as in Dhuhr. Number four, when you go for Jum'ah, you enter the Masjid and pray two rak'ahs Nafil Salat as Tahiyyat. You sit and wait for the Khutbah to begin. In this time, you read Quran or you make dhikr or you pray Nafil. Then, when the Imam ascends the mimbar, you look at the Imam and listen intently to the Khutbah. The rules for this are the same as the rules for Salah. That is, you remain silent. You do not do anything other than listening to the Khutbah. You are not even allowed to read Quran or make dhikr when the Khutbah is going on. You are not allowed to speak to anyone. You are not allowed to say Salam or return someone else's Salam, which is otherwise Fard. You are not allowed to even tell someone else who is speaking to remain silent. If you speak, your entire Jum'ah becomes invalid. Number six, the Khutbah ends with the Imam commanding, You then stand up and you pray two rak'ahs Fard for Jum'ah behind the Imam. Please note that this is not Dhuhr. This is Salatul Jum'ah, which Allah SWT commanded us to pray in Suratul Jum'ah. Number seven, after you complete the Fard of Jum'ah, you pray four rak'ah Salah if you pray in the Masjid, and two rak'ahs if you leave the Masjid immediately after the Fard of Jum'ah. Number eight, there is no Jum'ah, there is no Sunnah before Jum'ah. People can pray as many Nafl Salah as they wish, but there is no Sunnah before Jum'ah because Jum'ah is a special Salah. It is not Dhuhr. In Dhuhr, there is four rak'ahs before the Fard Salah, but not in the Fard Salah. But not in Jum'ah. Number nine, the time that is given to pray four rak'ahs Sunnah before Jum'ah is essentially incorrect and has no basis. As I said, people are free to pray as many Nafl rak'ahs as they want. But for someone to announce that you can now pray your Sunnah, this has no basis. Number nine, the time that is given to pray four rak'ahs Sunnah, that's why I said it's incorrect. Now, number ten, some ulama have said that Jum'ah is in addition to Dhuhr. So, they prescribe four rak'ahs before the Fard of Jum'ah and four rak'ahs plus two rak'ahs after the Fard. This, wallahu a'alam, as far as I know, has no basis. It is forbidden to speak during the Khutbah. The majority of the scholars are of the opinion that it is obligatory to be silent during the Khutbah and one is not to indulge in conversation during the Khutbah, not even if it is to order someone else to do something good or to stop some evil. Amr ibn Maruf and Nahiyal Munkar, even this is not allowed. And this rule applies whether or not the person is sitting in the mosque can actually hear the Khutbah. So, even if you are sitting in the mosque in a place, maybe there is no mic or something, it's a big mosque and you are sitting in a place where you cannot actually hear the Khutbah, still you follow all these rules. You don't speak, you don't tell anyone not to speak and you don't say anything to someone, do this, do that. Ibn Abbas reports that Rasulullah said, whoever speaks in Jumu'ah while the Imam is delivering the Khutbah is like a donkey who is carrying books and for those who tell him to be quiet, there is no reward for the Jumu'ah. And this is narrated by Imam Ahmad, Imam Ibn Abi Shaybah, Al-Bazar, Al-Tabarani and so on. Ibn al-Hajar al-Naskalani in Bulugh al-Maram, he said, there is no fault in its sin. Abdullah bin Amr reports that the Messenger of Allah said, there are three types of people who attend the Jumu'ah. One, a man who is present but speaks during the Khutbah and that is his portion of the prayer. That means after he has spoken, there is no reward for him. Two, a man who is present and makes dua, in his case, Allah may give him what he asks. If he wishes or he may not give him what he asks. Three, a person who is present and observes silence, and makes dua, in his case, Allah may give him what he asks. If he wishes or he may not give him what he asks. There is expiation from that Jumu'ah until the next Jumu'ah, plus an additional three days. As Allah says, He that brings a good deed and does good shall have ten times as much to his credit. And this is in Musnad Ibn Ahmad and in Sunan Abi Dawud with a good chain of narration. Qurayr narrates that Rasulullah said, if during the Jummah, while the Imam is delivering the khutbah, you tell your companion to be quiet, then you have spoken needlessly. This is narrated by the group of all the Muhaddithin, except in Ibn Majah. Abu Darda says that Rasulullah was upon the mimbar and was addressing the people, and he recited an ayah. And next to me was Ubay bin Ka'ab. And I asked him, when was this ayah revealed? He refused to talk to me until Rasulullah finished and he came down from the mimbar. And then he said to me, you have nothing from your Jummah except your useless talk. Imagine, these are some of the greatest of the Sahaba of Rasulullah. But they made a mistake and they record this. And may Allah bless them. Thanks to them, we learn. When Rasulullah had finished, I went to him and informed him of what had happened. And he said, Ubay has told the truth. If you hear your Imam speaking, be quiet until he is finished. And this is in Musnad Imam Ahmad and in At-Tabarani. Imam Ahmad and Imam Shafi have reported, they are reported to have made a distinction concerning this ruling between one who can hear the speech and one who cannot hear the speech, saying that speaking is forbidden for the former and not for the latter, although it is preferred for the latter also to be silent. At-Tirmidhi records that, Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal and Ishaq made an exception for replying to Salam and responding to a sneeze. When somebody sneezes and says Alhamdulillah, and you say Ya Rahmakullah, while the Imam is delivering the Friday Khutbah. According to Ash-Shafi, he said if a person sneezes during the Khutbah and someone says, Ya Rahmakullah, may Allah bless you. I wish I could have accommodated that. Since such a reply is a Sunnah, in my view it is makrooh that a person should greet someone with Salam while they are listening to the Khutbah. What makes it worse is that his Salam is not returned, even though saying Salam is a Sunnah, while responding to it, meaning saying, Wa Alaykum As-Salam is a Fard. Now think about this. All of these things are so critically important that we must learn them and we must learn them. We must ensure that we do what pleases Allah SWT only and not anything which does not please Allah SWT. My brothers and sisters, I ask Allah SWT to be pleased with us and to help us to do something which pleases Him. And especially as Jummah is such an important time and Salah, such a Mubarak time that Allah SWT has made this Mubarak for us. We ask Allah SWT to help us. We ask Allah SWT to benefit from it completely and totally. This is one of the games that Shaitan plays where you make all the effort, you go to Jummah, you leave your house, you travel to the Masjid, you make sure you are there in time, you sit there and you go through the whole thing. But because you ignore these prohibitions and you speak to somebody or you return somebody Salam or you tell somebody not to do this or not to do that or you know just say, whatever, people do all kinds of things. The reward for the Jummah is completely nullified. And so what sense does it make? That you make all the effort to do all this, but the reward is nullified because you have violated the prohibitions of Jummah. So it's very important for us to learn these things and to ensure that we practice them. We ask Allah SWT to help us to benefit from whatever, whatever good we do for His sake and to give us Ikhlas and Niyah and to accept it from us and to protect us from Riyah, from showing off, to protect us from doing anything which goes against the Sunnah of Rasulullah and to make sure that our Ibadah and our obedience always increases. Wa sallallahu ala nabiyyil kareem wa ala alihi wa insha'ilil nain bi rahmatul kari arhaman ar-Rahimin walhamdulillahi rabbil alamin. Al Fatiha.