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What is the ruling on someone who leads people in prayer by force, knowing that there is a regular imam?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The resident Imam has more right to lead the prayer than others. It is forbidden for anyone to lead people in prayer in a mosque that has a resident Imam except with his permission, because he is in the position of the master of the house and has more right to it, and because [leading without his permission] leads to alienating people from him. If someone other than the resident Imam does so without his permission, his prayer is invalid according to many Hanbalis.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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