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What is the ruling regarding Friday prayer if the Imam is absent and the muezzin leads the people in Dhuhr prayer and refuses to deliver a sermon to them?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If the conditions for the Friday prayer are met within a Muslim community, and there is a preacher among them, then they are obligated to pray it. If they pray Dhuhr instead, their prayer is invalid. As for the residents of a city, all of them are required to pray Friday prayer, whether they are near or far. If they do not find a preacher in their town, they must go to another nearby mosque, provided the distance does not exceed a farsakh (approximately 5 kilometers). Whoever misses the Friday prayer and prays Dhuhr, despite being able to pray Jumu'ah, must make up the Dhuhr prayer, because his previous prayer is invalid. It is forbidden for the muezzin to prevent people from performing the Friday prayer if someone is available to lead it.

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

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