the second person to enter could stand beside him, and the two of them would form a row without any objection.

If someone says, “Why do you not tell him to wait? If someone then comes to join him, well and good; otherwise, he may pray alone by himself,” we say: This entails two harmful consequences:

The first is that he may wait and miss the rak‘ah; and that rak‘ah may perhaps be the final one, causing him to miss the congregational prayer altogether.

The second is that, if he waits and misses the congregation, he has been deprived of congregational prayer both in place and in act. But if he joins the imam and prays alone, then, at the very least, we say that he has been deprived only with respect to place; as for the act itself, he has caught the congregational prayer. So which is preferable: to deprive him of congregation in both act and place, or only in place?

The answer is: only in place. This is even if we were to say that, in this case, he has committed something objectionable. Yet the stronger view, in my opinion, is that when it is impossible to stand in the row, then if he forms a row by himself, he has not committed anything prohibited.

Question: What kind of standing alone invalidates the prayer?

Answer: The standing alone that invalidates the prayer is when the imam rises from bowing and no one has joined the latecomer. But if someone joins him before the imam raises his head from bowing, or if a space opens up in the row and he moves into it before the imam rises from bowing, then in that case he is no longer regarded as standing alone.

“Unless the person is a woman; and the female imam stands within their row, …”

His statement, “Unless the person is a woman”: the pronoun refers to the person standing alone; that is, unless the person standing alone is a woman behind a man, or likewise behind the row, for her prayer is valid.