Pronunciation Errors in Prayer

Ustadh Farid Dingle clarifies questions about pronunciation in prayer.

Question:

Assalam alaykum wa rahmat Allah wa baraktuh.

For almost a year now I have had a problem regarding the validity of prayers due to errors in pronounciation. I will therefore describe the situation in extensive detail so as to exclude any misunderstanding and to ensure an accurate ruling.

My mother tongue is a dialect of Arabic, my problem is not at all specific to the Arabic language. I am fully capable of soundly pronouncing all the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Rather, my problem is related to speech in general and occurs in other languages as well.

In the flow of speech, even at a very slow pace, I cannot maintain tight control over my tongue and thus there occur mistakes. There are four aspects of this problem: 1. parts of the prayer which require correct pronunciation, 2. types of errors, 3. methods of correction and 4. options for dealing with this difficulty.

Please, bear with me even if this seems somewhat banal, this has had a grave effect on me and I am unable to function properly without finding a decisive and precise solution.

Dear questioner,

Our religion isn’t like this. You are going too overboard.

Just focus on the meanings of the words you say in the prayer, and don’t worry about the rest.

When these thoughts get too much just say: audhu billahi min al-shaytan al-rajim, and just do what other everyday religious Muslims do.

You can study this topic in more detail in formal classes on fiqh, but don’t worry about your prayer for now.

I pray this helps.

Farid

Checked and approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani.