Issue: May a worshipper alert someone other than his imam if he makes a mistake in something—for example, if the person beside you moves excessively and distracts you?

The answer is yes: you may alert him, because this helps to set right both his prayer and yours. Indeed, even if it were assumed to be solely for the purpose of setting right his brother’s prayer, there is no harm in it.

The evidence for this is the occasion of the hadith, namely the Prophet’s ﷺ words: “If something occurs to you.” Its occasion was that Mu‘awiyah ibn al-Hakam came while the Prophet ﷺ was praying, and he joined the prayer. A man among the people sneezed and said, “Praise be to Allah.” Mu‘awiyah then said to him, “May Allah have mercy on you.” The people fixed their gaze upon him—that is, they began looking at him in disapproval of what he had said—so he exclaimed, “May my mother be bereaved of me!” They then began striking their thighs to silence him, so he fell silent. When the Prophet ﷺ concluded the prayer, he summoned him and said: “Nothing of people’s speech is suitable in this prayer; rather, it consists only of glorifying Allah, proclaiming His greatness, and reciting the Quran.” (1)

And he said to the Companions: “If something occurs during your prayer, let the men say Subhan Allah, and let the women clap.” (2)

This issue pertains to the prayer of others, yet in another respect it is in fact connected to their own prayer, because it may cause them distraction. For this reason, the Prophet ﷺ did not forbid them from objecting to what Mu‘awiyah had done.

And he spits to his left during the prayer, and in the mosque, into his garment.

His statement, “And he spits to his left during the prayer”: the word “spits” may be pronounced with the letter zāy—