Conditions for the Place of Prayer

Imam Khamenei

The place where one may perform prayers should meet the following eight conditions:

First condition: Being permissible to use, e.g., in one’s own home

1. One’s place of prayer should not be usurped.
2. Prayers performed on a usurped carpet or bed are invalid, even if it is on one’s own land. The same rule applies to spreading one’s own carpet on a usurped piece of land.
3. If one performs the prayer without knowing or having forgotten that the place they are praying has been usurped, one’s prayer is valid.
4. If one knows that a place has been usurped, prayers performed there are invalid, even if one is not aware that prayers performed in a usurped place are not valid.

Second condition: Being still

1. The place where one is offering their prayer should be immobile, so that one can pray while their body is still and without movement. Therefore, to pray at a place where one moves against their will (like in a moving car or a train or on some spring mattresses) is incorrect, except when one is compelled to do so due to a shortage of time or some other valid reason. It is obligatory for passengers who travel on public transportation to ask the driver to stop at a place appropriate for praying if they fear the time of prayer will lapse; it is obligatory for the driver to accept their request.

Third condition: The place of prayer should not be one in which it is forbidden to stay.

1. One should not perform their prayer in a place in which it is forbidden to stay, such as a place where the person’s life is in serious danger. It should also not be somewhere where it is forbidden to step or sit, such as a carpet with the name of God or Quranic verses woven in it, as standing on it leads to desecration.

Fourth condition: One must not stand in prayer ahead of the tombs of the Holy Prophet or an infallible Imam.

1. The praying person should not stand ahead of the tomb of the Holy Prophet or an infallible Imam, but there is no problem with standing in line with them.

Fifth condition: The place of prostration (sajdah) should be pure and ritually cleansed.

1. The place of prostration (sajdah) should be pure, but there is no problem if the place where the person offers prayer, except where one puts their forehead, is ritually filthy (najis); one’s prayer there is valid, provided that the place does not make one’s body or clothes ritually filthy (najis).

Sixth Condition: There should be a distance between a man and a woman.

1. According to obligatory precaution, there must be a distance of at least one span [one footstep] between a man and a woman who are praying (outside Masjid al-Ḥarām); if the span is observed, they can stand (in the same row) next to each other, or the woman can stand in front of the man and their prayers are correct. Whether or not the man and woman are of unmarriable kin (maḥram) [like a father, uncle or brother] makes no difference.

Seventh Condition: It should be flat.

1. The difference in height between the place of the forehead and the place of the knees and tips of the toes in prostration (sajdah) should not be more than four joined fingers.

Eighth Condition: It is recommended (mustaḥab) to offer prayer in the following places.

1. A mosque (masjid):The best mosque (masjid) is Masjid al-Ḥarām, followed by Masjid al-Nabī, then Masjid of Kūfah, Masjid al- Aqṣā, and then the central mosque (masjid) (mosque (masjid) jāmi‘) in any city.
2. The shrine of an infallible Imam: Offering prayer in the shrine of an infallible Imam brings more reward than offering prayer in a mosque (masjid)
3. The holy shrine of a Holy Prophet (pbuh) or the place in which a friend of Allah, a great pious man, or a great Muslim religious scholar is buried.

Ruling regarding Mosques

Ayatollah Sistani

Ruling 01. It is unlawful to make impure a mosque’s floor, ceiling, roof, and inside walls, as well as fixtures and fittings that are deemed to be part of the building, such as doors and windows.

Ruling 02. If someone cannot make a mosque pure or needs help to do so but does not find it, it is not obligatory for him to make it pure. However, in the event that he knows that if he informs someone else it would be done, then, if leaving the impurity as it is, would cause disrespect to the mosque, he must inform the other person.

Ruling 03. If someone usurps a mosque and builds a house or something similar in its place, or if it becomes ruined to the extent that it can no longer be called a mosque, then making it impure is not unlawful, nor is it obligatory to purify it.

Ruling 04. It is unlawful to make the shrines of the Infallible Imams (as) impure. If one of the shrines becomes impure, in the event that it remaining impure is disrespectful, it is obligatory to make it pure. In fact, the recommended precaution is that even if it is not disrespectful, it should be made pure.

Ruling 05. If the ḥaṣīr or carpet of a mosque becomes impure, it must be washed; and if cutting out the impure part is better, it must be cut out. However, cutting out a considerable amount, or making it pure by causing damage to it, is problematic [i.e. based on obligatory precaution, it must not be done], unless leaving it causes disrespect.

Ruling 06. If for the purposes of holding mourning ceremonies a mosque is draped in curtains and covered in rugs and black cloth, and if utensils for serving tea are brought into it, then as long as these actions do not damage the mosque or obstruct the performing of prayers in it, there is no problem.

Ruling 07. The obligatory precaution is that a mosque must not be decorated with gold. And the recommended precaution is that it should not be decorated with things that have the form of a human being, an animal, or anything else that has a soul.

Ruling 08. Even if a mosque is ruined, it is not permitted to sell it or make it part of another property or road.

Ruling 09. The following are disapproved for a person to do in a mosque: sleep (unless he is compelled to), talk about worldly affairs, engage in craft, recite poetry (unless it exhorts people to good), and similar things. It is also disapproved to discharge nasal mucus, saliva, and phlegm in a mosque; in fact, this is unlawful in some cases. Furthermore, it is disapproved to look for something lost or raise one’s voice in a mosque; however, there is no problem in raising one’s voice for adhān.

Rulings regarding Mosques

Ayatollah Makarem Shirazl

Question 01: Is it permissible to demolish the mosque of a desolate village?

Answer: Demolishing a mosque is not permissible but if it collapses itself it is permissible to use its materials to rebuild the mosque of that village or other places.

Question 02: What is the ruling concerning the mosques which are situated in the middle of streets, and also regarding those which are situated in deserts or desolate villages and which are no longer used for performing prayers and sometimes they are contaminated by animals which enter them?

Answer: About mosques that are situated in the middle of streets, there is no way that they can be demolished, both because they are mosques and because the property on which they have been built has been devoted by someone to the mosque. Thus, anyone who demolishes such a mosque should pay the price for that by building another mosque or repairing other mosques. In fact, this is an example of wasting the property itself and until there is no necessity, destroying a mosque is strictly impermissible. As regards desolate mosques in deserts and desolate villages, they should be kept in a way that they are not desecrated.

Question 03: Why it is not permitted to do what can be done in a mosque in hussainiyyah (place of mourning Imam Husayn (‘a), and vice versa? Because if it is permitted we can have one place which can be used both as a mosque and a husainiyyah in order to prevent the wastage of land and costs of building.

Answer: There are some limitations for women and sometimes for men for entering mosques however, there are much fewer limitations for entering hussainiyyahs. Of course one will be granted a much greater reward for performing prayer in the mosque compared to a husainiyyah and this is why both kinds of building are constructed.

Question 04: If a mosque has extra carpets or other things which are not needed in it, is it permissible to give them to poor persons if other mosques don’t need them?

Answer: This is not permissible, but it is permissible to sell them and use the money for other needs of the mosque.

Question 05: There are two mosques which are built next to each other, one for summer and the other for winter, and the winter mosque is too small to meet the needs of people particularly in the month of Muharram is it permissible to expand the winter mosque by taking some space from the summer mosque?

Answer: It is not permissible based on the obligatory precaution however you can open a door from one mosque to the other.