Chapter on Congregational Prayer

It Is Binding upon Men ...

His statement: “Chapter on Congregational Prayer.”

The apparent meaning is that this is an attributive genitive construction—that is, the chapter on the prayer that is gathered and performed in congregation.

Congregational prayer is prescribed by the consensus of the Muslims. It is among the finest acts of worship and the noblest deeds of obedience. No one has differed concerning it except the Rafidites, who say that there can be no congregation except behind an infallible Imam. For this reason, they do not perform the Friday prayer or congregational prayers. Shaykh al-Islam, may Allah have mercy on him, said of them: “They have abandoned the mosques and populated the shrines”—that is, the graves. They frequent them, seeking intercession through them and invoking them. As for the mosques, they do not populate them by praying therein in congregation.

Otherwise, all Muslims are agreed that it is prescribed. No one has said that it is not prescribed, that it is merely permissible, or that it is disliked. Rather, they differed over whether it is an individual obligation, a communal obligation, or a confirmed sunnah.

According to the view that it is an individual obligation, is it a condition for the validity of the prayer or not?

His statement: “It is binding upon men.”

The term “binding” denotes something established. Thus, for something to be binding means that it is established; something binding is fixed and indispensable. The jurists, may Allah have mercy on them, sometimes use the expression, “it is binding,”