Malfuzat - Volume VII — Page 56
Malfuzat - English translation of Urdu Volume 7 56 Undated Offering Prayer behind a Non-Ahmadi Imam After receiving letters from friends abroad, Hadrat Maulaw i ‘Abdul- Kar i m, may Allah have mercy on him, again presented this issue before the Promised Messiah, peace be on him, who said: I still maintain the same belief that one should not pray behind anyone else. Even in Hajj, a person can arrange to pray at his place of residence and not pray behind anyone. Some Imams of the Faith stayed in Makkah years upon years, but because the condition of the people there had fallen from taqw a [righteousness], they could not bear to pray behind anyone and continued to pray alone at home. These four Prayer mats 1 [around the Ka‘bah] that exist now were not there at the time of the Messenger of Allah, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. At that time, there was only one Prayer mat for the Imam to lead the Prayer. And even now, until all four are not lifted, and only one remains, Tau hi d [Oneness of God] and righteousness will never spread there. 2 1. Previously there were four mu s allay —a place where the Imam stands to lead the Prayer—but nowadays there is only one, and this change was brought about in 1925. These places of the Four Imams in the area immediately around the Ka‘bah refer to the four historic stations for leading the daily Prayers that once stood there. These were used by the Imams to lead Prayers for the four leading schools of Islamic jurisprudence. [Publisher] 2. Al-Badr, vol. 3, no. 44, 45, p. 15, dated 24 November & 1 December 1904