perform the prayer and pay no attention to the person who is preventing you from attending the Friday prayer. If he persists in forbidding you, you have two courses of action:
- Refer his case to the competent authority in your area so that he may be restrained.
- Seek employment with another Muslim who will enable you to perform the prayer in the mosque.
And Allah knows best.
Question: They must also not exploit this dispensation by wasting the time for which they were hired, for perhaps the employer’s motive in preventing them is to avoid having his time wasted under the pretext of prayer?
Answer: The allowance is limited strictly to the time required for the prayer. It should not extend beyond that. They are permitted only the amount of time it takes to perform the prayer in congregation; anything in excess of that belongs to the employer, and he has the right to prevent them from using more time than is needed to offer the prayer.
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Repeating the Congregational Prayer
Question: I prayed ‘Asr and then remained seated in the mosque. Later a man arrived and asked me to pray with him, although I had already prayed. Should I pray with him or not? What is the evidence for that? Please benefit us; may Allah reward you with every good.
Answer: There is no objection to doing so, God willing, according to the sounder of the two scholarly opinions. Repeating a congregational prayer is permissible even during the times in which prayer is ordinarily disallowed, because this is one of the prayers that have a specific cause. Your praying with the person who came after missing the congregation allows him to obtain the congregational prayer and its virtue; there is no harm in that, God willing.