What Is the Ruling regarding Mistakes in Recitation in the Prayer?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

I was reading a fatwa online (Please note that I have waswaas, may Allah cure me and all muslims, Ameen).

Today the shaytan attacked me with the issue of saying iyaaka, in stead of iyyaaka (with a shadda) in prayer and because it changes the meaning, the salat would be invalid. Alhamdulillah, Allah subhanahu wata‘ala has blessed me with ahkaam tajweed. The issue is, I live in Amsterdam and alhamdulillah we have a lot of mosques, but I am so sad that not all the mosques have imams who recite correctly. So they also make the mistake of saying iyaaka in stead of iyyaaka. Today, I have spent so many hours to find out if there is ikhtilaf in this issue and that it doesn’t invalid.

Now I have found this fatwa online, and if I am correct, it says that the Hanafis say that leaving the shadda, even when it changes the meaning, does not invalidate your salat. Is this correct? I love to pray in the masjid, wherever I am. I think I am praying now in the mosque for almost 15 years and I don’t want to not go, or go and repeat the salah when I hear a mistake. Please advise me. Barak Allahu fikom amin!

This is the link to the fatwa: مذاهب العلماء في صلاة من ترك التشديد في الفاتحة

There is also something that I have encountered today. I prayed maghrib behind a new imam today; he is Turkish, from what I know. So he said in al fatiha, ghayri al magh .doebie instead of speaking it in one instance: ghayril magdhubie. It was like he was trying to pronounce it correctly. This also added to my waswas today. Does this invalidate his or my prayer?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

It is correct that most mistakes in recitation do not invalidate the prayer. The scholars have taken a less strict stance on the issue do to the lack of knowledge that has spread. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

In both cases that you mentioned the prayer is valid.

Please see the following article for the details:
Do Grammatical and Pronunciation Mistakes While Reciting the Qur’an Invalidate Your Prayer?

Hope this helps
Allah A’lam

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.