Q.1. People in India do not treat the prayer for a deceased person, i.e. janazah, as a prayer, because it does not include the same movements as ordinary prayers. They call it supplication, or invocation. They do not read the opening Surah, Al-Fatihah, in this prayer. Please comment.
Q.2. Is it obligatory to have a fresh ablution after one eats camel meat?
Q.3. According to the Hanafi school of law, ablution is not invalidated by touching one’s private parts skin to skin. Please comment.
Q.4. Ibn Abbas states that a person with minor defilement can read the Qur’an without having to have ablutions. Is this correct?
Q.5. Some people say that they follow a tareeqah, which means that they have to pledge allegiance to a sheikh who becomes their mentor. They obey him in every minor and major thing. They do thikr in groups at night, and the sheikh emphasizes in his teachings the importance of ma’rifah or knowledge of God and union with Him. Please explain.
S. Parveen
A.1. Scholars differ as to the form of the prayer for a deceased person, or janazah, but they agree that it includes four takbeer. Some scholars maintain that there is no need to read any part of the Qur’an, while other scholars insist that reading the Fatihah, or the opening Surah of the Qur’an, is obligatory after the first takbeer. This prayer is composed largely of supplication for the deceased person in any form one wishes. We pray to God that He would forgive the deceased his or her sins and admit him or her into heaven. Whichever form one uses, it is hoped that it is acceptable to God and that the prayer or supplication we make on behalf of the deceased is acceptable.
A.2. No, this is not obligatory. It is true that the Prophet said to his companions who were with him eating a dinner in which camel meat was the main dish: “Whoever has eaten camel meat should have a fresh ablution.” However, on another occasion, the Prophet did not tell them the same thing. On the contrary, he offered his prayer without performing a new ablution before it. Reconciling the two incidents, scholars say that the Prophet might have realized on the first occasion that someone in the group invalidated his ablution, say, by discharging wind. He did not wish to embarrass him by pointing the order to have a fresh ablution to him in particular. Therefore, he included everyone in his order.
A.3. This is true of the Hanafi school of law. They rely on a Hadith in which the Prophet tells someone that a genital is part of one’s body, and as such touching it, skin to skin, does not invalidate ablutions, or wudhu. Other schools of law rely on different Hadiths which suggest that a fresh ablution is necessary in such a case. Where we have such disagreement, it results from which Hadith a particular scholar knew and how authentic it is according to his own standards of verification.
A.4. I am not sure what is meant by “minor defilements”. Therefore, I cannot give an answer to this question.
A.5. This practice and all that is involved in it is alien to Islamic worship. There is nothing in Islam that suggests a special method of ma’rifah, which means knowledge. Such people, who are called Sufis, claim that they get true knowledge through their sheikhs, or mentors, and that this knowledge of God provides the truth in its absolute purity. All such claims are nonsense. The perfect knowledge has come to us in the Qur’an and through the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Nowhere in the Qur’an or the Hadith do we find any such suggestion. Hence we should throw it away, no matter who makes it.
To have a relationship of complete obedience to a sheikh, like the Sufis require, is wrong. In fact, they say that a mureed, or student, should adopt toward his mentor a position similar to that of dead man or to a dog with his master. How ridiculous. In fact, if one does this, one is accountable to God for it, and may incur His punishment. If this mentor orders someone to do a sinful action, and he does his bidding, he shares with his sheikh responsibility for that sin. God has given us minds to think and guidance through the Prophet to follow. If we follow anything or anyone else, we err and become liable to incur God’s displeasure.
Missing prayers
Q. Should a person regularly miss Fajr prayer, though not deliberately, what would be his or her status?
Maryam Khan
A. God has imposed on us the duty of attending regularly to our five daily prayers. When the Prophet was asked which action is loved most by God, he answered, “offering prayers at their proper times.” So, every Muslim should take precautions to attend to every prayer at its appropriate time.
Needless to say, attending to Fajr prayer is more difficult because it involves rising from one’s sleep to pray. It may have become even more difficult these days, because people tend to stay up late watching television. By the time Fajr prayer falls due, they would not have had enough sleep. Hence, their difficulty is more compounded.
Whatever the causes may be, it is extremely important to take every precaution to develop the habit of rising to offer Fajr prayer on time. This may be difficult the first week, but when we have had a few days of rising to pray, it becomes much easier.
We should mention also that if one tries to wake up for Fajr but nevertheless fails to do so, one should offer this prayer immediately after waking up. The Prophet says: “Anyone who forgets his prayer or sleeps through it should offer it immediately as he becomes aware of it, because that is its appropriate time. This means that when you wake up in the morning to find out that you have missed your Fajr prayer, then you should immediately go to the bathroom for ablution and start your prayer before attending to anything else.
