Is Prostration Necessary if One Hears the Recording of a Verse of Prostration?

Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam
Question: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu
Is prostration necessary if one hears the recording of a verse of prostration?
Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,
I pray that you are in the best of health and faith, insha’Allah.
(1) The obligation to prostrate, upon the one who hears a verse of prostration, is minimally established when it is (a) recited by (b) a discerning child.
(2) Based on the above, the jurists mention that the “recitation” of a parrot, or an echo for instance, is of no legal consequence.
Contemporary scholars explain that recordings, too, fall under (2) above, in that the conditions of obligation are not met; they are essentially very much akin to the echo.
Hearing from somebody asleep does not necessitate the prostration, let alone hearing from a recording.
(Sh. Muhammad Sa`id al-Burhani has a footnote on hearing a live recitation on the radio, and the necessity to prostrate, as opposed to hearing from a recording…)
[Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah & Imdad al-Fattah; `Ala’ al-Din `Abidin, al-Hadiyya al-`Ala’iyya]
And Allah alone gives success.
wassalam,
Tabraze Azam
Checked & Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani.