Masjid al Haram Completes 100 Years Of Salah Under One Imam Only
For many centuries the Grand Mosque in Makkah had four separate prayer places. Each school of thought prayed one after another with its own Imam.
The Shafi’i group usually prayed first, followed by the Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali groups. This meant the same prayer was repeated several times in one day inside the Haram.
This system of multiple congregations lasted for hundreds of years. It began around the fifth and sixth centuries of the Hijri calendar and continued under different rulers until the early twentieth century.
Travelers and historians of the time described how worshippers from each madhhab gathered at their own designated maqam and prayed separately.
On 27 October 1926 King Abdulaziz ordered this practice to stop. After meeting with scholars from the Hejaz and Najd, it was agreed to bring everyone together under one single Imam.
The separate prayer stations were abolished and the repeated congregations came to an end.
Since then only one congregation is held for each prayer. No repeated groups and no separate sections remain in the Haram.
One Imam leads all the worshippers at a time, and the people stand together in unified rows. Several qualified Imams still rotate duties, but there is never more than one congregation for the same prayer.
This matches the way the Prophet ﷺ and his companions prayed. In the early days of Islam there was one gathering behind one Imam.
The decision of 1926 restored that original practice after centuries of division.
The same system has continued without change for a full 100 years. Today millions of worshippers from around the world still pray as one united congregation in Masjid al-Haram.
The unification remains one of the lasting reforms introduced during the early Saudi administration of the Holy Mosque.
