Repeating the Jumu'ah salaah

Q: Salaah-688: Us people living in Toronto (Canada) require some detail concerning the Jumu'ah salaah. Many Muslims here work on Fridays and despite great efforts, they are unable to perform the Jumu'ah salaah at the same time. There are more than four of us who are forced to perform the Jumu'ah salaah during the time of Zuhr at a place where the Jumu'ah salaah has already been performed on time. Will our Jumu'ah salaah be valid in the given circumstances? Please explain with reference to the Qur'aan and Ahadeeth.

Answer: Even if it be at the expense of losing a few coppers, the Jumu'ah salaah needs to be performed in a Masjid. If this is not possible, it needs to be performed with a large group in a place reserved for salaah. However, if a person is sometimes unable to present himself, he may perform the Jumu'ah salaah with at least one Imaam and three followers at another venue, such as a factory, etc. However when a place of salaah has an appointed Imaam and Mu'adhin and the five daily salaahs take place there, it is Makrooh to perform a second Jamaa'ah there.

By performing salaah in Jamaa'ah a second time, the importance of the first Jamaa'ah is undermined and people will think that they need not presentm themselves for the first Jamaa'ah because the second Jamaa'ah will be taking place.

Allaah has created mankind to worship Him and not to earn his sustenance because Allaah will provide sustenance. Earning a living is a means of sustenance and has been permitted. Therefore, always hankering after the means and forsaking the Jumu'ah salaah is a means of great deprivation and a sign of hypocrisy. Hadhrat Abdullaah bin Abbaas RADI. reports from Rasulullaah SAW. that a person who forsakes the Jumu'ah salaah without valid reason will be recorded as a Munaafiq (hypocrite).1 It is not permissible to take employment when it causes one to always miss the Jumu'ah salaah.

Allaah declares: "l have created man and Jinn only to worship Me. I require neither sustenance from them nor do I want them to feed Me. (Rather) Without doubt, Allaah is the Sustainer (He provides people with their sustenance), the Possessor of absolute power, Strong. "

It will therefore be foolish as a human to forsake an act of worship for the sake of employment. And Allaah knows best what is most correct.

Fatawa Rahimiyyah vol.2