Inauguration ceremonies for masaajid with parties and gatherings

Reference: al-Bid’u wal-Muhdathaat wa maa laa asla lahu – Page 233-234
Fataawa Islaamiyyah – Volume 1, Page 18

Opening masaajid is done with salaah prayed in it and filling it with the remembrance of Allaah, by reciting the Qur.aan and Tasbeeh, Tahmeed and Tahleel, and by teaching the sciences of the Sharee’ah and its means, and other matters by which, will raise the condition of the masjid. Allaah says:

{In houses (masaajid) which Allaah has ordered to be raised (to be cleaned, and to be honoured), in them His Name is remembered. Therein glorify Him (Allaah) in the mornings and in the afternoons or the evenings. Men whom neither trade nor sale (business) diverts from the Remembrance of Allaah [with heart and tongue], nor from performing as-Salaah, nor from giving the Zakaah. They fear a Day when hearts and eyes will be overturned [out of the horror of the torment of the Day of Resurrection]. That Allaah may reward them according to the best of their deeds, and add even more for them out of His Grace. And Allaah provides without measure to whom He wills}, [Soorah Noor, Aayahs 36–38].

The Messenger of Allaah used to inhabit the masaajid with this type of advice and admonition and counseling.

And he ﷺ was followed in this by the rightly guided Khulafaa., and by the rest of his Companions and the Imaams of guidance after the Messenger ﷺ, may Allaah be pleased with them and have mercy upon them. And all goodness is in following their guidance, in following their way in which they inaugurated masaajid, and inhabit it with what they observed in it, from worship and its like from the rituals if Islaam, and it is not established on the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ, nor on any of the Imaams of guidance who followed the Messenger, that they inaugurated a masjid with an opening ceremony party and with an invitation to what the people invite to nowadays, from gathering the people from different parts of the country when the building has been completed for commending it, if this was something that was praiseworthy the Messenger of Allaah ﷺ would have been the first of the people to do it, and would have made it a Sunnah for his Ummah, and the rightly guided Khulafaa. would have followed him in it, and also the Imaams of guidance after him, and if it had taken place it would have been narrated.

So therefore it is not appropriate to have these parties, and one should not attend this invitation and not to help them in making these ceremonies by giving money etc.

Indeed all good is in following those who came before, and all evil is in what those who opposed the [pious] predecessors had innovated, and the invitation of some of the Companions of Messenger of Allaah to their houses so that he would pray two rak’ah’s in a part of the house, so that the companion would take that has a place of prayer, so he could pray however optional prayers in that place, is not evidence for what is known nowadays of ceremonies for the opening of masaajid, because he was not invited to a ceremony, rather it is to pray, and he did not travel for the sake of that salaah, then also travelling to this ceremony or to pray salaah in that masjid, enters into the general prohibition of seeking a journey to other than the three well known masaajid, it is necessary to abstain from this innovated practice, and to suffice with the practice of the action that was at the time of the Messenger of Allaah and those that followed him, the Imaams of guidance may Allaah have mercy upon them, in the affairs of the masaajid.

And with Allaah lies all success and may Allaah send prayers and salutations upon our Prophet ﷺ and his family and his companions.

He is a graduate of the Islaamic University of Madeenah, having graduated from the Institute of Arabic Language, and later the Faculty of Sharee'ah in 2004. He currently resides in Birmingham, UK.

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