Will you not form rows as the angels form rows before their Lord?”

They asked, “How do the angels form rows before their Lord?”

He replied, “They complete the first row, then each successive row, and stand close together in the row.”

No one may therefore fill the rear rows while the front rows remain vacant, nor may people form rows in the streets and shops while there is still space in the mosque. Anyone who does so deserves disciplinary action. Those arriving after him may step over him and enter to complete the front rows, for he has no right to protection from being stepped over in this situation.

Likewise, no one may send ahead something to be spread out for him in the mosque while he himself stays behind. Whatever has been spread out for him has no protected status; rather, according to the correct view, it may be removed and someone else may pray in its place.

Instead, when the mosque is filled with rows, people should form rows outside it. If the rows then extend continuously into the streets and marketplaces, their prayer is valid. But if they form rows with a road used by pedestrians separating them from the next row, their prayer is invalid according to the stronger of the scholars’ two views.

Likewise, if a wall separates them from the rows, so that they cannot see the rows but can hear the takbīr (the proclamation “Allah is Most Great”), and they pray in this way without any need to do so, their prayer is invalid according to the stronger of the scholars’ two views.

Similarly, if someone prays in his shop while the road is empty, his prayer is invalid. Nor is he permitted