Islam Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for Muslims, experts in Islam, and those interested in learning more about Islam. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I always keep my cell phone into silent before starting prayer. But Sometimes I forget to do this in a hurry. One day my cell phone rang on the mosque during a prayer; and in this unfortunate situation, I turned off my cell phone with minimum movements of my hand.
Was I correct? What is the best thing should I have done in this situation?
The correct action here is to silent the phone. If the phone is in your pocket, you can quickly reach it with one hand and silent the phone. If it is on the floor, you can quickly pick it up and silent it and continue your prayer. During this time you should not act as if you are breaking the salat. Your intentions should simply be to fix the problem which in this case is the ringing of phone. By doing so you are doing a big favour to Jammat who can be easily distracted by the ringing tone, including the Imam.
What Movement Breaks the Salat
Moving one hand in prayer does not break the salat. Common example is one is standing while in prayer but he has an urge for itching, he can itch his beard for example. It does not break the payer. This is called Amal Qaleel.
Moving both hands from its normal place is called Amal Katheer. This makes the prayer invalid. A more proper definition is, if an onlooker sees you from a distance and he is convinced that he is not in Salat, this is Amal Katheer.
If you are moving one hand only, make sure that the moment is short enough. If one can recite (سبحان ربي الأعلى) three times during this movement (one hand only), it become Amal Khateer. Also not that if you are moving one hand (for example itching) repeatedly. Try to create a gap in your action. If you are doing thee consecutive action, and you cannot recite (سبحان ربي الأعلى) three times in these gaps, this also become Amal Khatheer.
My opinion is, even if the phone is on the floor, one can quickly focus on it, pick it and silent it. While this does involve the whole body movement, the onlooker can easy guess that he is trying to fix a problem and not really breaking the Salat.
You are allowed to move if necessary. It is mentioned in an authentic Hadith that:
The Messenger of Allah (sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam) was praying with his door bolted. I came and asked to have the door opened. He walked and opened the door for me. He then returned to his place for prayer. He (the narrator Urwah) mentioned that the door faced the qiblah
Hence you are allowed to reach your cell phone to turn it off. But if one doesn't have to move, then do not. One is not to move unnecessarily, and this is described as lack of khushu' /خشوع. One does not have to look up and hither and thither and so on etc. Also it is also good if you try to check and turn off your phone before entering the Masjid itself, in some Masajid there are even signs up asking to turn off your cell phone, if this is not in your Masjid then perhaps you can suggest it to the Imam, and this can lower the distraction during salat. I pray my answer is clear.
Sources: Islamic Online university
