graves, for if people were buried inside their houses, the cemetery and the dwellings would become one and the same. Offering prayer in a graveyard is prohibited—whether as a matter of disapproved practice or as an outright ban.
The Prophet ﷺ said, “The best prayer a man performs is in his house, except for the prescribed (obligatory) prayer (1).” This clearly implies that homes are not to be turned into graveyards.
As for his own burial in ʿĀʾishah’s chamber—may Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him—that was a privilege unique to him, just as he alone was granted a velvet cloth spread beneath him in his grave niche, and just as the Companions prayed over him individually without an imam, for he was their imam in life and in death, in this world and the Hereafter. Likewise, his burial was delayed for two days, whereas delaying the burial of others in the community is disliked, because he was safeguarded from bodily change, unlike us. They also postponed it so that every one of them could pray over him inside his house, which necessarily lengthened the process. Moreover, they spent half of the first day uncertain about his passing until Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq arrived from al-Sunḥ; this was the cause of the delay.
Abū Isḥāq al-Jūzajānī said: “There is no light upon the hadith of Ibn Luhayʿah; one should neither rely on it nor accord it any weight.”
On voluntary worship: the chapter entitled “Performing supererogatory prayers at home.” Muslim (no. 777) cites in “The Prayer of Travellers,” chapter “The Recommendation to perform nafl in one’s house,” the report transmitted by Abdullah → Nafiʿ → Ibn ʿUmar, in which the Prophet said: “Perform part of your prayers in your homes; do not turn them into graveyards.” Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar remarks in Fath al-Bari, 1/442, after quoting the sound hadith, “Allah did not take the soul of any prophet except in the place where he was to be buried,” that if we consider the Prophet’s burial in his house a special privilege, it remains plausible that others are forbidden to do so. Indeed, continual burial inside dwellings would eventually turn them into graveyards, making prayer there disliked. Abu Hurayra’s wording in Sahih Muslim is even clearer: “Do not make your houses graveyards,” whose apparent sense is a general prohibition on burial in homes. Allah knows best.
(1) Reported by al-Bukhari, 2/179 (Description of Prayer, “The Night Prayer”) and 13/227 (Holding Fast to the Sunnah, “What is disliked about excessive questioning”); by al-Tirmidhi (no. 450, chapters of prayer, “The merit of performing nafl at home”); and by Ahmad, 5/182, from Zayd b. Thabit. Similar reports exist from ʿUmar, Jabir, Abu Saʿid, Abu Hurayra, Ibn ʿUmar, ʿAisha, ʿAbd Allah b. Saʿd, and Zayd b. Khalid al-Juhani.