The Imamate of One Who Makes Offerings and Offers Cauldrons

Question

We are with the Deobandi jama‘at, and the imam of our mosque makes offerings at graves and prepares cauldrons [of food] in the name of spiritual guides, and he reviles the Deobandi scholars, [saying] that they have nothing: “I have got the better of them all.” He calls tabligh a wrong thing, and he prays the sunna one rak‘a at a time. Is our prayer valid behind such an imam or not? What is [the ruling] on keeping him [as imam]?

Answer

Making offerings at graves, preparing cauldrons in the name of spiritual guides, reviling the scholars of truth, and persistently abandoning the sunnas — these are such evils that, as long as he does not repent of them, appointing him as imam is makruh tahrimi. Prayer behind such a person is makruh tahrimi.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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