- Temporary muteness.
Permanent muteness is when it has accompanied a person since childhood. Temporary muteness is what occurs to a person as a result of an accident, an illness, or something else.
When it is permanent, the person will generally also be unable to hear. Loss of hearing precedes muteness, because if a person cannot hear, he cannot speak: he hears nothing to imitate so as to speak likewise. This is why, if a child is born deaf and Allah does not open his ears, he remains mute.
As for temporary muteness, the mute person may be able to hear, but an ailment has arisen that prevents him from speaking.
Neither type may validly serve as an imam, whether leading someone like himself or someone else, because he is unable to articulate the essential pillars, such as the recitation of al-Fātiḥah; the obligatory acts, such as the first tashahhud; or that by which the prayer is initiated, namely the opening takbīr. Thus, he is incapable of performing the pillars and obligatory acts, and so he cannot validly lead as imam one who is able to do so. This reasoning may be sound with regard to his leading one who is able to speak; however, with regard to one who is unable to speak, this reasoning is weak, because one unable to speak has no advantage or superiority over him in any respect. So why should he not be validly able to lead him?
For this reason, the stronger view is that a mute person’s imamate is valid, whether he leads someone like himself or someone who is not mute, because our principle is that whoever’s prayer is valid, his imamate is valid. Nevertheless, he should not serve as an imam, because