A resident offering his salah behind a traveller

In our masjid a sheikh came from new york to New Jersey I believe he was a traveling and masjid management allow him to be imam. Then he prayed four rakats of isha namaz as imam. There were majority of hanafis praying behind him, so is our prayer is done or we need to repeat our prayer?

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

الجواب حامدا ومصليا ومسلما

In principle, a traveller is required to perform qasr (i.e shorten any four rak’ah salah to two rak’ahs). It would not be correct for a traveller to pray full prayer. If they were to pray salah in full, the latter two rak’ahs would be considered nafl. Thus, in the aforementioned scenario, the ‘Isha prayer of the local congregants would not be valid since the latter two rak’ahs of the imam were nafl and not fardh.

It is recorded in many ahaadith that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and give him peace) shortened the prayer when he led salah in Makkah during the time of Hajj and asked the local Muslims of Makkah to complete the remainder of their salah on their own. Such ahaadith show that an Imam who is a traveller should shorten the prayer (and not lead the full prayer), while the local congregants should complete the remainder of their prayer on their own.

والله اعلم

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala knows best.

Mohammad Jafari

Approved by Mufti Husain Ahmad Madani