Hanafis Performing Saläh Behind a Shäfi’ë Imam

Answered by Shaykh Omar Subedar

Question:

How do I perform the Eid prayer behind a Shäfi’ë Imam? Since none of takbeers and time of performing the prayer is different, can I follow this type of Imam?

Answer:

بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

As a person who adheres to the fiqh of the Hanafi School of Islamic Law, you may follow a Shäfi’ë Imam in the Eid prayer and you will perform the prayer in the same fashion as the Imam performs it.

The great Hanafi Scholar, Muhammad Amin, who is better known as Ibn `Äbideen [d. 1252H] has written, “As for following a person [in saläh] who does not conform [to the same rulings] among the branches [of fiqh as the follower], such as a Shäfi’ë, it is permissible as long as [no such action] is known to have been perpetrated from the Imam that would invalidate the prayer according to the follower’s belief, which there is a consensus on. Scholars have only differed over [whether doing as such is] disliked [or not].

... The important areas to be watchful over is that the Imam performs wuźhu / ablution after bloodletting, cupping, vomiting and experiencing a nose bleed etc.; not the areas that are Sunna according to him and makrōh according to us such as raising the hands at the time of changing postures and reciting bismillah audibly or silently...”  [Radd al-Mukhtär p. 302 vol. 2, Maktaba Imdadiya, Multan, Pakistan]

And Allah Knows Best