Do Imams Measure up to Their Office? Needed: An exact job description for imams in the West BY JAMAL TAYH
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oes a mosque really a need paid imam to lead the daily prayers and a hafiz to lead the taraweeh prayer so that the entire Quran is recited during Ramadan? What is the Prophet’s (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) sunna in this regard? Did the early Muslim generations recite the entire Quran during their taraweeh prayer? The imam’s position has been an integral part of the Islamic state since the Prophet established it in Madina. The Prophet and his Companions erected the Quba Masjid, the first purpose-built mosque. He laid its first stones as soon as he arrived, served as its first imam and leader, spent 14 days there praying qasr (the shortened prayers) while waiting for Ali (Radi Allahu ‘anh) to arrive, and led the first Friday prayers held in it. Shortly thereafter he built the main mosque, now known as al-Masjid al-Nabawi. Other mosques were gradually built in nearby locations and further afield. The local imams chose imams for these mosques to lead the prayers and maintain the facility. In his “Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din,” Abu Hamid
The Muslim Community of the Quad Cities, Bettendorf, Iowa
AND YET MANY IMAMS AND HUFFAZ ARE DISRESPECTED, FOR MANY FUTURE IMAMS WERE ENROLLED IN MADRASAS BECAUSE THEY WERE BELOWAVERAGE PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS. THIS IS ONE REASON WHY MANY WORKING PROFESSIONALS HAVE A NEGATIVE VIEW OF THEM.
al-Ghazzali states that the imam should lead the prayer “with sincerity,” be trusted in his spiritual purity and fulfill the prayer’s requirements. Here, “sincerity” means not taking any salary, because the Prophet ordered Uthman bin Abi al-As al-Thaqafi to assign a person who asks no recompense to call the adhan. As this is less important than the prayer itself, paying someone to lead the prayer is more prohibited. Such an arrangement isn’t haram, but it is certainly disliked (makruh). Paying someone to lead the obligatory prayers is even more disliked than paying someone to lead the taraweeh prayer. An imam should be paid only for coming to masjid regularly and taking care of its needs and general maintenance. Sheikh Saaed Saabiq, in his “Fiqh-UsSunnah,” defines an imam as “the one who is the most versed in the Qur’an. If two or more are equal in this, then it is the one who has the most knowledge of the sunnah. If they are equal in that, then it is the one who performed the migration first. If they are equal in that, then it should be the eldest. Abu Sa’id narrates that the Prophet said: ‘If you are three in number, then one of you should be the imam. And the one who has the most right to it is the one who is the most versed in the Qur’an’ (Ahmad, Muslim, and an-Nasa’i). The meaning of ‘most versed in the Qur’an’ is the one who has more of the Qur’an memorized. This interpretation is based on the hadith from Amr ibn Salamah, which says: ‘Your imam should be the one who is most versed in the Qur’an’” (http://mappingsharia. com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SaabiqFiqh-us-Sunnah.pdf). Only a few Companions had memorized the entire Quran. Al-Bukhari (hadith no. 3599) and Muslim (hadith no. 2465) narrated that Qatada asked Anas Bin Malik: “Which Companions had collected/memorized the entire Quran during the Prophet’s time?” He replied: “Only four...” Some scholars argue that Anas was referring to four members of a specific group of Companions, as opposed to all of them. Regardless of the actual meaning, however, it indicates that only a few of them had memorized all of it. Historically, most imams were volunteers chosen by locals, except for the government-appointed imams assigned to major mosques for political purposes. During the taraweeh prayer, the regular imam — in most cases a non-hafiz — led the prayer with whatever surahs he had memorized. This was the case in most MAY/JUNE 2020 ISLAMIC HORIZONS 51
