sutra in salah

bismillahirrahmanirraheem

It is related that the Prophet (ﻪﻠﻟﺍ ﻰﻠﺻ ﻢﻠﺳﻭ ﻪﻴﻠﻋ ) said ‘If the one passing in front of the one praying knew what
was against him, his waiting forty
would be better for him than passing
in front of him.’ [Bukhari] Abu al-Nadr,
one of the sub narrators, said ‘I don’t
know whether he said forty days, or months or years’. In a version
narrated by al-Bazzar the hadith reads
‘forty autumns’. The offence being as serious as it is,
the scholars defined what constitutes
passing in front of somebody praying.
If the one praying is in an open space
or a large mosque, the scholars differed concerning what is
considered passing in front, both
opinions being deemed strong and
follow-able. One opinion is that it is
passing by his place of prostration,
such that if one where to pass in front of him but beyond his immediate place
of prostration there would be no sin
upon one. The other opinion, which is
ibn Abidins preference, is that one
would be considered passing in front
if one is within the field of vision of the one praying if his eyes were fixed on
his place of prostration. If the one praying is in a room or a
small mosque then one will be sinful
for passing in front regardless of how
far in front of him one is. Ibn Abidin
defines a small mosque as being forty
cubits. However, is the one passing in front
always to blame? The possible scenarios that may occur
are four, 1. The one passing has an alternative
to passing in front and the one
praying did not pray in a place where
he is in people’s way.
-In this case the sin is only on the one
passing. 2. The one passing has no alternative
to passing and the one praying was in
a place where he would be in people’s
way.
-The sin in this case is solely on the
one praying. 3. The one passing has an alternative
to passing in front and the one
praying was in a place where he
would get in people’s way.
-The sin is on both of them. 4. Neither does the one passing have
an alternative nor is the one praying in
people’s way. -The sin is on neither of
them. In all of these cases the one passing in
front would be free from sin if the one
praying were to keep a sutra in front of him. A sutra is an object of about a
cubit in height that one places in front
of one as one prays. One last scenario that is relevant to
mention is that if someone prays near
the entrance of the mosque or without
filling in the gaps in the row in front,
one can walk in front of him to fill in
the gaps. [Radd al-Muhtar, 1:427, Dar Li Ihya al-Turath al-'Arabi] Looking now to the question at hand,
if the mosque is considered a large
mosque then there is no problem at all
as there is no harm in walking in front
of somebody by a few metres in a
small mosque. If it is not a large mosque then there still is no sin on the
men as they are walking to fill in the
rows which they can not do with out
walking in front of the women. And Allah knows best.