Sheikh Al-Manie: Ruling on prayer timings in northern Europe needed

JEDDAH: Adviser at the Royal Court Sheikh Abdullah Al-Manie, who is also a member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, has demanded Islamic scholars and academies deal with some erroneous fatwas (religious edicts) issued in northern Europe regarding the time of obligatory prayers in regions where night is much longer than daytime.

 “We should not abandon our Muslim brothers in northern Europe, Russia and America. We must cooperate and discuss with them, and assist them in all their religious issues,” Al-Manie said while speaking at a seminar organized by the Islamic Fiqh Academy, a subsidiary of the Muslim World League, in Makkah on Monday.

The topic of the discussion was prayer and fasting timings in countries lying between 48 and 66 degrees latitude in the northern and southern hemispheres, Al-Madinah daily reported Tuesday.

Generally, the Muslim prayer times are based on sunrise, sunset and the twilight glow in a place.

Clear and definitive directions on prayer timings is also needed as a growing number of Saudi youths is studying in northern cities of Canada and Britain, where the sun’s rising and setting patterns are different from the Kingdom and most other Muslim countries. Some scholars think the timing in Makkah could be followed in such situations.

 “It is vital for people living in geographical locations between 48 and 66 degrees latitude to learn their correct timings for obligatory prayers and fasting,” the sheikh said.

The scholar said some time ago, when he visited a northern European city, he found Muslims there worried about the fatwa issued by some other source about the prayer times, even though the source was reliable.

Al-Manie said reliable did not always mean correct. “No doubt, a view expressed by a scholar could be either right or wrong, as the prophets of Allah are the only humans free of errors,” he said.

They told him they were combining the Maghreb (evening) and Isha (night) prayers every night saying they were “compelled” to do that because they had to go to sleep, as the time of Isha prayer was very late.

The sheikh said their reason for combining the two prayers was not valid enough. Going to bed early was not a religiously permitted excuse to combine two prayers in a single go. However, this is an issue that required detailed study, as in some regions the sun does not appear for five or six months, he said. Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, who was participating in the discussions, observed that it is permissible to combine prayers if a situation demanded it.