What if I can not pray due to my work?

Question

Asalmualaykum

As I work in an office it is not possible to pray during work hours. Is it possible to add the prayers after I finish work?

Thanks

Answer 1

WaS

Prayer is one of the pillar of Islam and it is to be prayed five times a day, each within its given duration. There are a lot of people who work and also pray during office hours. I am sure there will be muslims in you line of work too.

Here are some of the things that you can do:

• You can only limit your prayer to "farz".
• You can make "wudu" in the morning and wear socks and shoes so that you can save some time to refresh the "wudu".(if needed)
• You can pray while doing some task that is not too distracting and does not involve interaction with other.e.g. driving

• You can talk to your employer and tell its a religious requirement. If he still persists then you can give him some options

  • You can limit your lunch break
  • You can work extra time, maybe twice the amount of time you take for prayer-break

If everything fails, you can consider switching the job at the earliest and while in that process, you can pray your prayers after work or you can combine zuhr and asar prayers in one during zuhr or asar time and/or magrib and isha prayers during mughrib or isha times.

Answer 2

You are not alone, millions of Muslims face the same situation, including myself, and handle it differently. Here's a list of suggestions:

• Find a small room rarely accessed by people, pray in there
• Find a muslim colleague, ask him where they pray (they may have dealt with the situation already)
• Befriend the security guard, or the janitor, and when you feel close enough, explain how important it is to you to pray and how it's not hurting anyone, and ask them to allow you to pray in their rooms
• If your company is occupying a few floors in a building, try the 3 steps above on other floors
• Check if you can access the basement or the rooftop of the building
• Check if it's possible to pray on the (almost never accessed) stairs of the last floor
• Check if it's possible to pray in a corner in the parking
• If the building is in the city, try the 7 steps above on the neighboring building.
• If your manager accepts diversity and is open-minded, discuss it with him; explain how these 5 mins breaks are similar to coffee break any employee could have any time of the day, and how prayer helps you be more focused and improve your productivity (stress on this point because that's what managers care about) by giving you a sense of psychological fulfillment, and you're willing to make it up to him by reducing your lunch break or working 20 mins over-time.

These points should work in general, but you may have some other options not listed above, depending on your very specific case and work environment; try thinking of something on your own.

If all of the points above are not doable, and you fail to come up with a solution that would not get you fired or cause harm to you in your work (maybe your manager is closed-minded and will seize the slightest mistake you make to fire you or decrease your salary, in case you pray in the office) then you would have 2 valid options, and it's up to you to choose to what extent you are willing to go for the sake of your deen:

• If it's possible, find another job where you wouldn't face this issue. Even if the pay is lower, you're sacrificing money for your deen, and Allah will greatly reward you for this inshallah. And this is the better option.

• If there are no job opportunities and it's difficult to find a job that would support you and your family, then Allah says in his holy Quran, surah Al-Inshirah {94}:

  5. “Then, surely with hardship comes ease:" 6. “Surely, with hardship comes ease,"

  And his prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him says):

  The deen is ease. Whoever makes the deen too hard for himself will be overpowered, [etc...]

  Allah does not want you to be in a burden you cannot handle, and being the most merciful, and seeing how you're putting all the effort to pray without being severely harmed in your social and financial situation, you can make the missed prayers when you get back home, and inshallah, with his mercy, he will forgive you.

  Allah Knows Best.

Answer 3

I am a female student I pay my fees and support my family so I do job also as I have to go university in morning so I only have the evening time to do job . After searching for three months I find this job with suitable timings where I am working right now so its impossible for me to leave it. The problem there is only 10 mins break which held at 8 pm but until 8 pm maghrib namaz become qaza sometimes I hardly get time to offer prayer and sometimes i dont get time what should I do? People easily say that change the job. its not easy to find a job with suitable timing for a female student ...

Allah never wants his people to leave the work or job and suffer due to namaz he wants to create ease for us not difficulties. Its obvious that to survive in this fast world we can not leave our studies or job just because of strictnes of Deen which is created by the mullahs and muftis . Islam is the deen of flexibility and Allah knows the best.

Answer 4

Hello brothers and sisters. I understand the five pillars and wudu. I also understand how difficult it may be for someone to find employment that may pay enough to support your family. One can’t simply move from job to job solely based on the employers understanding of accommodating prayer. I must say that although the Holy Quran states that we must pray, it doesn’t say five times. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) guides us to pray five times. During his time, there was no such thing a punching a clock to work or working part or full time, either salary or hourly. How then can we, as devout Muslims possibly think that we can live as they did back in Saudi Arabia centuries ago? Perhaps certain aspects with regards to praying need to be modernized. The Holy Quran should by all means stay the same as it is perfect, but traditions and customs such as Wudu and praying five times a day need to be addressed. Only Allah knows our hearts and may he guide us.

Answer 5

Leave your Job and find something part-time...... then establish pray ... but by best advice is pray 5 times daily for 40 days and then find part-time work . Only earn what you or your family need , do not be like the dis -believers who work all day and night and enjoy spending and holidays.

Answer 6

We live in a non-Muslim country and, correct me if I am wrong, but we must go by the rules of our companies. There is no time or proper clean place to do wudu. The breaks are short and a person can squeeze nemaz in now and again when you still have wudu but there are other jobs where a person feels very guilty because the work is so hard and he or she has to eat something for energy and there is not enough time to do both.

It is easy for someone to say get another job, but it is Allah we pray to to get us these jobs as there is a lot of outgoings e.g. bills, bringing kids up, etc. We must always ask for forgiveness from the almighty and try and make up for it when we are not at work by reading nemaz on time and doing other good deeds which will make Allah happy with us.

I think reading kadzah nemaz after work brings you very close to Allah because it shows you are still thankful of what Allah has given you. It is not always good advice to tell somebody to get a part-time job because not all of us can survive on the pay; e.g. when we work longer hours we earn extra money we send to the poor people in Pakistan and we can also visit our relatives there.

I could go on with this subject for a long time but I would like to end it by saying that we should have prayer in our minds at all times. Just going to jummah prayers once a week is not enough, nor just remembering Allah at hard times, nor when we want something.