The answer: The author explicitly states that it is not disliked. On its face, negating dislike indicates that the matter is merely permissible and not prescribed. However, this is apparently not what he means. Rather, by negating its being disliked, he intends to refute the view of those who hold that it is disliked. Accordingly, this does not contradict the view that it is recommended—or even obligatory—for the congregational prayer is obligatory. Many later scholars have pointed out that this is what the author and others who said, “It is not disliked,” intended.

Thus, the meaning is: we do not adopt this view; and when we do not adopt it, we return to the basic ruling. The basic ruling is that the congregational prayer is obligatory.

Accordingly, repeating the congregational prayer when one has missed it with the regular imam is obligatory, because praying in congregation is obligatory, and missing it with the regular imam does not remove that obligation.

Some scholars said that it is recommended rather than obligatory, because the first prayer is the one that the legally accountable person is required to attend, and it is through it that he attains the immense virtue established by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him.

This issue has three forms:

The first form: that repeating the congregational prayer becomes a regular practice.

The second form: that it occurs occasionally.

The third form: that the mosque is a market mosque, a mosque on a road used by cars, or something similar. Thus, if it is a market mosque, to which the people of the market come and go—two, three, or ten men arriving, praying, and then leaving, as is found in mosques in some markets—then repeating the congregational prayer there is not disliked. Some scholars said: by unanimous agreement. And it is not