• Prayers: Shortening when only weekends spent at home
I have recently moved to Makkah where I found a new job. My family which includes my parents, brother and sister still live in Jeddah. I go to see them on weekends and holidays. When I do, I pray normally, but when I am in Makkah I pray the shortened prayers, as I consider myself on travel. Someone advised me that it should be the other way round, and that I should pray the normal length in Makkah and shorten prayer when I go to Jeddah. Please advise which is the correct practice?
When you have taken up your job, you must have settled in properly, renting a place to live in and buying few things to make your stay comfortable. Suppose in a year's time someone asks you: Where do you live? You are bound to answer that you live in Makkah, although your family lives in Jeddah. You may not even add the last part about the rest of your family. Since you are traveling only on weekends to see your family, then certainly you are a resident of Makkah. Hence, you should pray normally in Makkah and when you leave it, you are on travel. It is not logical that you spend five or six days a week in a place and have employment and accommodation there and you still consider that you are a traveler, simply because your family lives elsewhere. In this situation, there is no doubt that you are a resident of Makkah. This means that you pray normally when you are there, and only when you travel from Makkah, you are a traveler.
• Prayers: Sitting position during the prayers
Is there any regulation about how to stand in congregational prayer? People also sit in different positions during prayer. What is the right one?
All positions which people use when they sit during prayer are permissible. However, it is recommended in the last sitting of a prayer consisting of three or four rak'ahs to bring ones left leg under the right one and allow one's left hip to be in contact with the ground.
When you stand up in congregational prayer you must make sure that the row in which you stand is straight. Each row begins in the middle, right behind the imam, and worshippers should stand on both the right and left sides of the imam. They stand shoulder to shoulder to make their rows straight.
It is permissible to drink or pass water when you are standing, although we are recommended to sit down before we drink.
• Prayers: Supplication during prayers — must it be in Arabic?
Many of us speak little Arabic. Is it permissible to use one's mother tongue in saying our supplication during various stages of prayer? A friend of mine says that all supplications during prayer must be in Arabic. I feel that the Prophet and his companions used Arabic because it was their mother tongue. Please comment. If a person does not speak Arabic at all, but has learned the meaning of the Qur'an in his language, can he use such translation in his prayer?
All scholars agree that anyone who offers prayers must read the Al-Fatihah and the Qur'an in Arabic. It is not possible to use translation, as I have explained on several occasions. If a person does not know the Fatihah, but knows another passage of the Qur'an, he is required to say in each rak'ah a passage of similar length to the Fatihah. If he does not know any part of the Qur'an in Arabic, he must learn. If he fears that he would miss his prayers before he could learn, he should glorify Allah, using the well known formula: Subhan Allah, Alhamdulillah, La ilaha illa Allah, Allahu Akbar, la hawla wala qowwata illa billah. If a person cannot learn all these five phrases, he learns what he can of them and repeats them.
This is the case of a man who could not learn any verse of the Qur'an; the Prophet taught him a few simple phrases in Arabic to repeat them in his prayers. He did not tell him to glorify Allah in silence.
Therefore, when you offer your prayer, you should say the Qur'an in Arabic and also any glorification or supplication. When you have finished your prayers, you can say any supplication in your language. Supplication in prayer can concentrate on what you have learned to say in Arabic. If you learn one sentence, to appeal to Allah to admit you into heaven and spare you any punishment in the hereafter, that is more than sufficient. You can include everything else in your supplication after prayer in your language.
It is not true that the Prophet and his companions used Arabic because it was their mother tongue. The Prophet used Arabic in prayer because he had to read the Qur'an in prayer and the Qur'an, Allah's words, is in Arabic. Any translation of it is not the Qur'an, but an explanation of its meaning. That translator may have to change the order of the original text in order to fit his text with the grammar into which he is translating. No one can change the order of the Qur'anic words. Had Allah wanted the Prophet to offer his prayers in any other language, He would have told him so and would have made it easy for him to learn that language. But Allah wants us to use His Book in our prayer. As it is well known to everyone, His Book has been revealed in Arabic.