Adam Ramadhan
A report variously ascribed to the Prophet Muḥammad (d. 11/632), Abū Dharr (d. 32/653), ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765), states: “your imam is your delegate (or ‘intercessor’ in one variant) to God, so do not take a fool or a hypocrite as your delegate.” This could, of course, refer to an imam in the other senses of the term, but is generally agreed to refer, in this context, to the imam as a prayer leader. What this report and others in a similar vein highlight is that who one chooses as one’s prayer leader had a bearing upon one’s prayer. We thus see numerous questions posed to early authorities about who can and who cannot act as a prayer leader. Concerns are raised about those with physical impairments and illnesses such as the blind, those with leprosy, and the insane, those who were perceived to be of a low social status such as the offspring of illegitimate relationships, those who had been subject to capital punishment, and Bedouins, for their reputation of being aloof from the settled Muslim community.
Piece of linen cloth. It depicts a male figure with raised hands, possibly in an attitude of supplication, standing before an arch with a hanging lamp. The cloth is decorated with rows of birds, fish and heart-shaped motifs. Egypt, 12th century; H. 25 cm, W. 15 cm.; Benaki Museum 15040
Concerns were likewise raised about prayer leader’s whose theological and political commitments differed to one’s own. Questions posed to early authorities about prayer leadership expressed concern with praying behind an imam who held heretical or problematic beliefs. Early authorities such as Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), Abū Yūsuf (d. 182/798), Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820), and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d.241/855) are said to have variously prohibited prayer behind those who held what were deemed to be heretical theological beliefs and those whose beliefs on the leadership of the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet were deemed unacceptable such as the Rāfiḍīs, the pejorative term for the Shiʿa stemming from their rejection (rafḍ) of the first three Caliphs, and the Murjiʾīs, who postponed judgement in the debate over ʿAlī’s and Muʿāwiya b. Abī Ṣufyān’s (d. 60/680) claims to rule. Such questions were also posed to the Shiʿi Imams with most questions concerned with prayer behind groups that may be hostile to the Shiʿa, such as those described as anti-ʿAlids (nawāṣib). The status of the Shiʿa as a minority forced the Shiʿi Imams to provide tactful responses to their followers in the face of such hostility. While an anti-ʿAlid should not be prayed behind if it can be helped, if one finds oneself under social or physical pressure to do so, then the one being led should either recite the Quran behind the hostile imam, indicating — implicitly — that they do not consider the prayer valid, or repeat the prayer when appropriate to do so. What such instances indicate is that who one prayed behind — or perhaps more importantly, one who did not pray behind — had become, by this time, a means by which communal boundaries could be demarcated and enforced.