Walking infront of the person praying

Q 10: If a person passes before a person praying, does this break his Salah and what should be done to avoid this? What is the meaning of breaking Salah? Does it nullify it?

A: The passage of a person in front of a person praying does not break or nullify it. A person may avoid allowing anyone to pass before him by placing a Sutrah (barrier placed in front of a person praying) before him while offering Salah and stopping anyone from passing between him and the Sutrah. If a person wants to pass before someone who is praying without a Sutrah, he may stop him from passing if he is in the area of three arms length whether he is an Imam or offering Salah individually. As for the Ma'mum (a person being led by an Imam in Prayer), there is no harm if anyone passes before him.

May Allah grant us success. May peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and Companions.


The Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Ifta'
`Abdul-Razzaq `Afify `Abdul-`Aziz ibn `Abdullah ibn Baz

What do you do if the electricity cut out during Juma’ah


Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azeez ibn Baaz Aal al-Shaykh was asked about a similar situation and he said: Whoever catches up with one rak’ah of Jumu’ah then is faced with a problem such as the electricity cutting out and the like, should complete it as Jumu’ah on his own, i.e., he should pray the second rak’ah then say the salaam, because in al-Saheehayn it is narrated from Abu Hurayrah (may Allaah be pleased with him) that the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever catches up with one rak’ah of the prayer has caught up with the prayer.” One catches up with the rak’ah by catching up with the rukoo’ (bowing). The one who does not catch up with rukoo’ with the imam has not caught up with the rak’ah. Based on this, if the people mentioned in the question did not catch up with anything but the opening takbeer with the imam, then they should have prayed it as Dhuhr.

Majallat al-Buhooth al-Islamiyyah (61/83).

Prayer timetables


Shaykh Uthaymeen said, pointing out what is said about timetables being inaccurate:

Because some people nowadays are uncertain about the timetables that people have, and they say that they give the time of dawn too early, we went out into the desert with no lights around us, and we saw that the dawn came later, and some people exaggerated and suggested that the dawn comes twenty minutes later.


But it seems that this exaggeration is not correct. What we think is that the timetables that people have nowadays give the time of dawn in particular as five minutes early, so if you eat whilst the muezzin is giving the adhaan according to the timetable, it doesn’t matter. Some muezzins, may Allaah reward them with good, give the adhaan five minutes later than the time given in the timetables as they exist at present, as a precaution, but some ignorant muezzins give the adhaan for Fajr early, claiming that this is on the safe side with regard to the fast, but they forget that they are being careless with regard to something that is more
important than the fast, namely Fajr prayer. So people may end up praying ahead of time based on their adhaan. If a person offers a prayer ahead of its time, even if he says the opening takbeer, his prayer is not valid…

From Majmoo’ Fataawa al-Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may Allaah have mercy on him), vol 19, question no. 772