Father Preventing Son from Praying
4-12-2025 | IslamWeb
Question:
Assalamu alaykumI am in a very difficult situation where I cannot practise Islam openly, and I genuinely fear being caught. My father once found a salah learning sheet and became very angry with me. He gets suspicious very quickly — for example, he once asked me if I was making wudu and praying just because he noticed the towel was very wet. The step of trying to convince doesnt exist. He clearly showed to me that he doesnt want me to practise. What should i do? Addition: He is Hadith rejector
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
We ask Allah Almighty to relieve your distress, ease your hardship, and grant you relief from every worry, and we ask Him to grant you a path to escape from every difficulty, and recovery from every affliction. We advise you to frequently supplicate to Allah, for Allah Almighty is All-Hearing and All-Responsive. He commanded supplication and promised to answer, Allah Almighty says (what means): "Your Lord has proclaimed, {Call upon Me, I will respond to you. Surely those who are too proud to worship Me will enter Hell, fully humbled.} [Quran 40:60]
We emphasize the importance of asking Allah for wellness, as no other supplication is comparable to it.
We also advise you to be patient, for it is the key to the doors of relief, and through it Allah forgives sins and raises ranks. Work on communicating with your Muslim brothers in Islamic centres and consult them on matters of your religion and your worldly life.
Furthermore, prayer is of great importance, as it is the second pillar of Islam after the Two Testimonies of Faith. It is the first of the practical pillars, and the first of Allah’s rights for which a servant will be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection. If it is sound and right, then he will succeed and be saved, and if it is corrupt, then he will fail and loose. Similarly, it is the connection between the servant and his Lord.
One must preserve the prayer and perform it on time, and it is not permissible to neglect it or delay it beyond its prescribed time without a legitimate excuse, such as sleep or forgetfulness. If you are able to endure any harm that may affect you, then strive to perform it openly; this may be a reason for the problem to disappear entirely. You may face harm at first but will not continue indefinitely. However, if you fear that you cannot endure the harm, or that you may suffer significant damage, then make sure to perform the prayer secretly at its proper time as much as you can and combine two prayers only when there is a dire need to do so. Some scholars have permitted this, such as praying Dhuhr and Asr at the time of either one of them, or Maghrib and Isha at the time of either one. And if it happens that your father asks you, then use tawriyah (ambiguous wording) for allusive speech provides an escape from lying. Thus, you can say, for example, that you have not yet prayed, while intending the prayer which is due to come.
Lastly, if you have a way to live independently from your father, then do so, so that you may worship Allah without falling into any difficulty, while still striving to show him kindness as much as possible. One of the greatest forms of kindness toward him is to pray to Allah for his guidance, and that He enables him to strive sincerely on the path of righteousness and follow the true way of Islam.
Allah knows best.