the obligations of prayer and other duties are waived when valid excuses exist. Forming rows is only one of prayer’s obligations; when it cannot be done in congregational prayer, it is therefore waived, just as other obligations are waived in it and under the various prescribed forms of prayer. This is why maintaining congregational prayer in situations of danger, illness, and the like—even when this entails facing away from the qibla, making extensive movements, parting from the imam, or the sick person’s omission of standing—is preferable to praying individually. For this reason, some of Ahmad’s companions held that a follower may stand ahead of his imam when necessary, as in cases of overcrowding and the like, although this is impermissible without such a need. This has also been reported as one of the forms of the fear prayer.

Accordingly, Ahmad and other imams of the Sunnah waived, in cases of need, such conditions of congregational prayer as the imam’s uprightness, the lawful status of the place, and the like. They therefore permitted—indeed, required—the performance of Friday prayer, the two Eid prayers, the fear prayer, the pilgrimage rites, and similar observances under sinful imams and in usurped places whenever refraining from doing so would result in abandoning Friday or congregational prayer, or in strife among the Muslim community, or the like. This accords with the hadith of Jābir, may Allah be pleased with him: “No wicked man should ever lead a believer in prayer unless he coerces him by wielding authority, leaving him in fear of his sword or whip.” The strongest conclusion this entails is that an imam’s uprightness is obligatory; yet this obligation is waived by a valid excuse, just as many obligations are waived by necessity in congregational prayer under conditions of danger.

Whoever is guided to this principle—that the obligations intrinsic to prayer are waived because of a valid excuse, as are the duties governing congregational observances and the like—has been guided to the middle course taught by the Sunnah: between wholly neglecting some obligations of the Sharia, as some people may be afflicted with, and displaying excessive rigor concerning that particular obligation until, when unable to fulfil it, one abandons other obligations that are more firmly binding than it, even though those more binding obligations remain within one’s capacity, as may