Is it necessary for the sunnahs of the Friday prayer to be performed in the same place as the Friday prayer is performed? Are there any practices of the Prophet (pbuh) regarding it?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Some mustahab practices related to worshipping were forgotten or abandoned in the course of time due to various reasons. Therefore, a person who tries to do one of those mustahab deeds is regarded to be doing something wrong. 

Performing the sunnahs of the daily prayers, especially the morning (fajr) prayer is one of them. There are hadiths that encourage us to perform nafilah, that is, sunnah prayers of the daily prayers at home:

“Do not transform your houses into graves.”

In another hadith, the Prophet (pbuh) states the following:

“The best prayer a person performs except fard prayers is the prayer he performs at home.”(Muslim, Salatul-Musafirin: 212-213)

Thus, the Prophet states that it is more virtuous to perform nafilah prayers at home. The practice of performing the sunnah at home and the fard prayer in the mosque in congregation is applied in some regions but it is not possible for everybody and everywhere; therefore, in general, both sunnah and fard prayers are performed in the mosque. If sunnah prayers are performed at home, a mustahab practiced by the Prophet will be applied and thawab will be gained. However, it is also permissible to perform both of them in the mosque.

Besides, there are two reasons why sunnah prayers are performed at home: Firstly, if a person always performs prayers in the mosque, he will abandon performing prayers at home. A Muslim’s home is like his mosque. Therefore, he needs to perform some nafilah prayers at home. However, nowadays, our houses are not transformed into graves because we sometimes perform prayers at home due to our work, the mosque being away from our houses and other reasons. Thus, the first reason is fulfilled.

The second reason can be said to be the following: It is more appropriate to perform nafilah (supererogatory) prayers or rawatib sunnahs of the prayers at home in terms of sincerity. Thus, a person will be freed from show off. There is no show off in fard prayers; therefore, it is more virtuous to perform them in the mosque; besides, according to some scholars, it is wajib to perform prayers in congregation. However, today, nobody thinks of show off while performing the sunnahs of the prayers.  

However, it is more virtuous to perform awwabin prayers and other nafilah prayers that are not adjacent to daily fard prayers at home. In addition, a person can perform sunnah prayers at home and go to mosque for the fard prayer unless he is accused of not performing sunnah prayers. If such an accusation is possible, it is better to perform both the sunnah and fard prayers in the mosque. In that case, it is permissible for some of the congregation sit and and some of them to perform the sunnah prayer in the mosque.

Besides, some houses being distant from mosques can cause people to miss the congregation in fard prayers after performing the sunnah at home; it is necessary to perform the fard prayer after the sunnah without being busy with worldly things; therefore, there is no drawback to performing sunnah prayers in the mosque.  

We think it is easier and better to perform the sunnahs, especially the sunnahs of the Friday prayers, in the mosque.

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