the main congregational mosque, it would not be valid to hold it in any other mosque unless Friday prayer were permanently transferred there. This is an unlikely view, for it is a mosque, and Friday prayer may validly be held there when it cannot be held in the main congregational mosque, even without being permanently transferred there. Friday prayer was once held in Córdoba at the mosque of Abū ‘Uthmān in the western suburb. I believe this could only have been because some impediment prevented it from being held in the main congregational mosque, without its being permanently transferred there, at a time when scholars were numerous. Even if the imam transferred Friday prayer on a particular Friday from the main congregational mosque to another mosque without an excuse, the prayer would still be valid.
Someone might object: “If Friday prayer could be offered outside the main congregational mosque without being permanently transferred there, then someone who developed a nosebleed while offering Friday prayer with the imam could complete his prayer in the mosque nearest to where he washes off the blood. Yet they have said that he may complete his prayer only in the main congregational mosque.”
The answer is that some of our scholars have said that he should complete his prayer in the nearest mosque, unless he knows that he can catch some part of the imam’s prayer, in which case he should return to the main congregational mosque to complete his prayer with the imam. According to this view, the objection does not arise. As for those who require him to return to the main congregational mosque even if he will catch none of the prayer with the imam, their reasoning is that he must return to the mosque in which he began praying with the imam because he began his prayer there with him, not because it is the main congregational mosque. And Allah, glorified and exalted, knows best.
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As for the sermon, it is a condition of the validity of Friday prayer, not of its obligation. Ibn al-Mājishūn held that it is a sunnah. The evidence that it is obligatory is the saying of Allah, Almighty and Majestic:
“And left you standing” [al-Jumu‘ah: 11].
One of its conditions is that it precede the prayer. There is disagreement over whether a congregation is also one of its conditions; the apparent meaning of al-Mudawwanah is that it is. There is also disagreement over whether the congregation must remain from the beginning of the prayer to its end for the prayer to be valid. There are three views: the first is that this is one of the conditions of