Praying on back of truck because of rain or snow
Fatwa No: 190659

Question

Assalam alaykum, i live in a non muslim country where it rains a lot or snows sometimes i drive a truck so i am out of my home during the day what i want to know is is it permissable to pray my salahh in the back of my truck where i can fully stand and prostrate and face the qibla i try during the dry times to pray outside but it is difficult during rain

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If the time of the prayer comes and you find a mosque where you can pray in congregation, then it would become an obligation upon you to get down from the truck and pray in congregation because the congregational prayer is an obligation according to most scholars on a man who is capable and who hears the call to the prayer, unless going to the mosque would lead to losing the truck or that something would be stolen from it for instance, then it would become permissible for you not to attend the congregation. For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 83297and 82538.

If you are outside of the town while it is raining or snowing, then it is permissible for you to pray on your truck while it is moving (i.e. while you are driving it), but if the truck is parked, then you may pray in it even if there is no rain or snow and you are not obliged to get down from it to pray directly on the ground.

One of the Fataawa of Shaykh Muhammad ibn Ibraaheem reads: “The prayer in a moving car is not valid if it is an obligatory prayer unless there is mud and rain, then it is permissible to pray in it just like it is permissible to pray an obligatory prayer while on a mount. As regards the optional prayer, then it is valid to pray in it [a car] whether it is moving or parked. But if it is parked [not moving], then it appears that it is permissible to pray the obligatory prayer in it, like on erected wood planks, benches and the like. It is not like the riding animal because the riding animal may move any time, but the truck is a parked device and it cannot move by itself [without being driven].”

Allaah Knows best.

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