Is it permissible to pause salah and do personal work and continue where you left?

Question

Here is the link:- http://raleighmasjid.org/how-to-pray/invalidate.htm It says:

If any emergency arises during prayer and you must leave prayer you should make one Tasleem to the right side only, take care of the matter quickly, and complete the prayer from where you ended.  If the matter takes a long time, then redo the prayer from the start.

Is it permissible Or does this website need revision for its mistakes?

Answer 1

The main reasons which allow an interruption of the prayer are quoted in the answers of my former question Can an Imam interrupt a prayer for some reason?

1. The cry of a Mazloum requesting assistance.
2. When an asset valuing more than a Dirham is stolen, even if it belongs to someone else.
3. In the fear of, a wolf attaching a sheep.
4. In the fear of, a blind man falling into a well.
5. Any other act in the spirit of aforementioned.
6. Loosing the taharah while praying

It is preferable to interrupt the prayer by either performing one tasleem or any action which isn't a part of the prayer.

These are the main conditions for fard (obligatory) prayers and they are related with the purity of the person and the fear of a damage or death etc. While in the case of optional prayers the matter is taken less strictly. For example there are ahadith showing that one should respond to the call of parents while praying a nafl prayer.

Among these reason work is certainly not an important part, so you can certainly not interrupt your fard (obligatory) prayer for a reason related to your work, but in case of nafl you might for example be allowed to respond a phone call etc.

Also note that there are two main opinions on what to do after the interruption according to a fatwa of sheikh al-Albani posted here in Arabic:

• redo the prayer (this was so far the only opinion I knew of).
• start from where you stopped, but you can only built on a full raka'a as it seems, and I'd assume (as I have no idea how this is exactly meant) that for this the interruption must be very short, for example for the time to save a soul, or perform wudu' after loosing taharah.

Answer 2

As the scholars said (references in the links). If you interrupted (stopped) your prayer, you cannot come back and continue it. Besides, the Prophet (blessing and peace of Allah be upon him) said in prayer, conversation is not allowed except for ِAl-Qura'n, At-Tasbeeh, and Az-Zekr. so you must start from zero.

And if anyone starts his prayer without wudu, it is not considered initially, then how will he finish it.

Notice that I didn't consider your case or whether it is illegal to interrupt it or not but that was in general.

See these links:

Islam Q&A: List of things that invalidate the prayer

Islam Q&A: If someone loses his wudoo’ whilst praying and goes and does wudoo’, can he resume his prayer from where he left off or should he start all over again?

Islam Q&A search for continue his prayer after interrupting it