Feet against feet in salah?

Question

Are the feet supposed to be in contact with the feet of the person next to you during salah, as many brothers insist in mainly Arab mosques? I feel that it interferes with my concentration during salah when the person next to you presses his foot against mine, and the more I try to remove my foot, the more the person next to you tries to fill the gap. What should I do?

Respond

1. No. First, the distance between the feet in salah, in the Hanafi school of law, should be whatever one feels comfortable with.
2. The fuqaha (scholars) believe this distance to be the span of 4 fingers.
3. This also applies during congregational salah. However, one must be careful that the row (saff) one is in is straight, in that one’s heels are in line with the person on both the right and left. This is how the fuqaha, across the schools of law, have interpreted the often misinterpreted traditions (hadith) on the subject.

A similarly qualified opinion for the Shafi’i school is the following:

“What our Shafi’i Imams have said is that it is sunnah for a person in prayer to have a distance of one hand’s width in the standing position and in kneeling, regardless of whether he prays alone or in congregation. If he does not touch the foot of the person next to him in this, he is not required to accommodate this.”

With the above, it is clear that it is not a requirement to touch the feet of the person next to you. If this applies to people you often pray with, it is advisable to pull them aside after prayer and explain the matter in as much detail as possible with good akhlaq (friendly approach).