The iqama* had been uttered and God’s Messenger faced us and said, “Make your rows straight and stand close together, for l can see you behind my back.”
* A repetition of the words of the call to prayer after the worshippers have taken their places with the addition of a statement that the time of prayer has come.
Bukhari transmitted it. In the version given by Bukhari and Muslim he said, “Make the rows perfect, for I can see you behind my back."
God’s Messenger used to straighten our rows as if he were trying to make them as straight as arrows until he saw that we had learned it from him. One day he came out, stood up, and was just about to say God is most great ’ when he saw a man whose chest projected from the row, so he said, “Servants of God, you must straighten your rows, or God will certainly put your faces in contrary directions."*
* The use of “faces” here may mean the people themselves and their inner nature. The tradition may refer to civil strife, which is possibly the meaning of the tradition below from Abu Mas'ud.
Mujahid, on the authority of ‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar, reported the Prophet as saying, “No man must prevent his family from coming to the mosques.” A son of ‘Abdallah b. ‘Umar said, “I will certainly prevent them,” whereupon ‘Abdallah said, “I tell you something from God’s Messenger, and you say this!” He said that ‘Abdallah did not speak to him during the remainder of his life.
