the prescribed prayer.” (1) In another wording: “except for the one that has been commenced.” (2) That is, even if you have an obligatory prayer to make up, and the imam is leading the prayer, yet you pray alone in order to perform that earlier obligatory prayer, you are forbidden to do so because of his ﷺ statement: “There is no prayer except for the one that has been commenced.”

Some people have cited the hadith of the two men as evidence that it is permissible to establish a congregation at one’s lodging rather than in the mosque. In other words, they argue that a person is not required to pray with the congregation in the mosque; rather, he may pray in congregation at his lodging. Accordingly, if we are a group in a house and the muezzin gives the call to prayer, it would be permissible for us to pray in our house and not go to the mosque, based on the two men’s statement to the Prophet ﷺ, “We prayed at our lodgings.” He then said, “When you have prayed at your lodgings, then come to a mosque where there is a congregation,” and he did not say, “Do not pray at your lodgings; rather, pray in the mosque.”

There is undoubtedly some ambiguity in this argument: it involves the action of the two Companions and the Prophet’s ﷺ approval of their action. As for their action alone, it is certainly not proof, since it is possible that they did not know that prayer in the mosque was obligatory. It is also possible that they thought the congregation had already been established and that they would not catch the mosque congregation, so they prayed at their lodgings. But what raises the difficulty is the Prophet’s ﷺ approval of them, since he did not say, “Do not pray at your lodgings.” There is no doubt that this contains an ambiguity and affords some basis to those who maintain that prayer in the mosque is not obligatory; but there are