Fard: technically, it means any action which, if done, deserves reward from Allah; and if neglected, deserves punishment from Allah. (Yes, that’s right–you actually earn reward for doing all those fard actions!)
Here, we discuss two classifications of faraaid–Sofa Fard, and Bucket-Seat Fard.
Sofa Fard (also known as Fard Muwassa’) is a fard which you have a choice of when you can do it. It’s like a sofa–you can sit on the left, on the right, in the middle, anywhere you want!
Praying Dhur is a sofa fard–you can pray at the start time, half an hour before the end time, at some point in the middle, etc. anytime before ‘Asr. (Another definition of sofa fard is: an action you have time to do, and have time to do another similar action.)
Some examples of sofa fards include:
- Praying any of the 5x daily prayers
- Giving Zakaat-ul-Badl to poor people in Ramadan before ‘Eid
- Performing Hajj
Bucket-Seat Fard (also known as Fard Mudayyaq) is an action where you don’t have a choice of when you can do it. It’s like a bucket–if you need to sit in the bucket (camping, anyone?) then you have to sit in the bucket. You can’t choose where–you only fit in one spot.
The fasts of Ramadan are bucket-seat fards–you have to do them IN Ramadan, you can’t do them before or after (unless you missed them legitimately).
Some examples of bucket-seat fards include:
- Fasting in Ramadan
- Paying zakaah one year after you cross the nisaab
- Visiting Arafah in Hajj on the 8th of Dhul Hijjah
What other examples of sofa and bucket-seat fards can you think of?
Muhammad Alshareef. Lecture. AlMaghrib. Code of Scholars. University of Toronto, Toronto. August 2005.
Abu Ameenah Bilal Phillips. Usool Al Fiqh: the Methodology of Islamic Law Made Easy. Ltd ed. United Arab Emirates: Preston University, 2003. 16.
Assalamu Alaikum,
So does that mean we can pray our salah at any time keeping in mind we should prey it before the next prayer. Is there no such thing as praying as soon as the azan calls out? Pl clear this for me.
Wa’alikum as-salaam,
If Dhur starts at 1pm, and Asr starts at 5pm, you can pray Dhur up to 4:59pm (if you can finish in one minute), and you will not be a sinner. The only exception is Fajr, whose time ends at sunrise (not Dhur), and there’s a difference of opinion about whether Isha time ends at the Islamic midnight or at Fajr.
Having said all that, it’s better to pray as soon as the time comes in (i.e. 1:01 in the example above, which is usually right after the adhaan in masjids), because there’s more reward, and it prevents the possibility of you missing the prayer by delaying too much.
Wallahu ‘alim.