As a sunni, I’d like to know what are the differences to expect if I’ve invited a shia family for iftar party.
I heard they have different timings to start iftaar. I guess we should start iftar our time and they can start when it’s time for them?
What about praying maghrib. Do they have different timings for that too? And do they pray the same way as we do? If they do, then I guess we can pray together? They also do the maghrib and isha as a combo. So if we do pray together and they start praying isha right after that…i guess we can excuse ourselves and then pray isha later on.
I don’t want to offend the familiy coming over and would like to know the facts beforehand rather than act confused when they’re here.
whenever i had iftaar with my shia relatives or friends, they would not mind us breaking the fast earlier than them. out of respect we would however only eat a khajoor or something to break the fast and then wait for them to break their fast and then start eating.
as far as namaz time difference its marginal, and if you wait yoiu will not miss the time, hopefully people do not have issues praying behind or next to people from another sect. usually its not a problem.
I did nto know about the maghrib isha combo, i always saw them pray for both namaz separately, but if that is the case u can excuse yourself and pray later.
it depends on the people, most people are understanding and accomodating that you dont understand or know their practices and are doign the best.
They pray slightly differently from us, and sometimes combine prayers.
You just break your fast at the right time and pray the way you normally do, they’ll pray their way.
It’s good that you’ve invited them it might soften their hearts and bring them closer to Sirat al-Mustaqeem. Just make sure you don’t get influenced by their sect.
We have a few Shia family friends in Pakistan and they pray just like us whenever they are at our house. I think they were practicing summat called taqiyya because they were probably shy or summat...
when i visit some of my shiaa friends, they r good enuff to drop me to the mosque so i can pray, then they go home, finish their prayers, and come back and pick me from the mosque....
once back to their place, we have the meal together....
One more question...do they pray differently from us? I mean the imam guy when we will pray will likely be one of them. So I don't want to get all confused if they start praying differently.
Mr. Fraudia - did you all pray together or separately when you had them over? If together...then did it go same way as ours?
We prayed together, but agin it can vary..some sunnis and shias would not like to praytogether, our group had no such issues.
sky the prayers were the same, some of them use a small piece of clay to do sajda on, some do not..other than that the namaz was the same, there were minor differences which exist even among diff sunni schools, wether u fold your arms or whethr u raise them each time u say allah akbar..i dont remember that as i was concentrating more on my own namaaz.
well …what we friends do is…we sunnis iftar with a khajoor and then wait for shia friends…meanwhile we usually go to pray maghrib prayers and when we return we eat iftari together…
PRAYERS…
there are many options for shiaz…they do taqiyyah and pray with u…or they jusy pray there own namaz…or they may pray after they go home…
we do have different timings for sahoor and iftaar, the reason for that is that there is difference of opinion amongst shia and sunni scholars as to when exactly the roza is over. I believe it has to do with the disappearance of "shafaq"..the pinkness in the sky. Nothing major.
As to namaz timings, there is that ten minute difference as mentioned before. There is also the fact that we believe that it is possible to combine zuhr/asar and maghrib/ishaa without the first in each pair being qazaa. Even so, the best time for praying zuhr and maghrib is before asar and ishaa repectively..so we do try to pray them roughly about the same time sunnis do.
As for :
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It’s good that you’ve invited them it might soften their hearts and bring them closer to Sirat al-Mustaqeem. Just make sure you don’t get influenced by their sect.
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perhaps you are aware that Al-Azhar recognises Shia Ithna-ashari (jafari) as a valid alternate interpretation alongwith the other four(hambali/maliki/..)? Perhaps you should lay off the sirat-e-mustaqim stuff unless you're the one deciding it.
as for the style of prayers. a lot of it is varies even within sects . i've lived in oman for fifteen years, and even though they're not shia, they pray like us (haath khol kay). similarly i know certain shias who fold their hands in prayer. IMO its not really a big issue.
Actually thats not true, they do break fast before Salaat and right on time. they just wait for the right time to break the fast. coz according to Holy Quran you can break your fast when you see the darkness in the skies. Not in the bright skies.
sky, dont worry about praying together, havent you seen all the sects praying together during Hajj.
totally offtopic:
Ravage.......what years did u live in Oman???I was there for the first 18 yurs of my life and went to Pak School Muscat. You think maybe I know you??ANy chance?
Not that I’ve seen. But I’ve also heard that apart from the regulation sunnis..the Mufti et all are Kharijiites..people who were with Hazrat Ali until jang-e-siffien…where they turned against him. And then Hazrat Ali waged war against them and they had to flee to oman/yemen.
They call themselves ibadhis.
I’ve never actually seen any abusing though, and Ali/Usman/Umar is a pretty common name.
i have heared that omani ppl abuse hadrat ali like shia pl abuse other sahbah…can u confirm that…