Whether a Place Is a City Depends on Custom (‘Urf)

Question

There is a large village whose population is four thousand; it has thirteen small shops of various kinds — a blacksmith, a carpenter, a goldsmith, a potter, a seller of remedies (‘attar) and the like; there is also a post office. Jumu‘a has been held here for about forty to fifty years, but there has also been disagreement [about it] from the outset. There are four mosques and also one Eidgah (open ground for the Eid prayer).

Answer

Answer (1) This much is agreed upon: the Friday prayer is not like the other five prayers, such that whenever, wherever (in a settlement, in the desert, on a boat) and however (alone or in congregation) it is performed it would be valid and the obligation (fard) would be discharged. Hafiz Abu Bakr al-Jassas ﵀ has stated this explicitly in “Ahkam al-Qur’an”.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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