in the mosque, and if praying in the mosque were superior to praying in the open area, then—had the mosque been too small—the Prophet ﷺ would certainly have hastened to enlarge it, just as some of the caliphs did after him. Indeed, he ﷺ had a stronger claim to undertake such an expansion than they did, were the space truly insufficient. His leaving the mosque as it was is impossible to reconcile with the alleged superiority—unless someone wishes to assert that some hindrance prevented him. I can scarcely imagine a scholar bold enough to make such a claim; and if anyone should venture it, we would confront him with Allah’s words: “Say, ‘Produce your proof, if you are truthful.’”⦗1⦘

What is astonishing is that the Shāfiʿīs take the Prophet’s continual performance of the Friday prayer in a single mosque as evidence that it is impermissible to hold more than one Jumuʿah in the same town, yet they do not take his constant practice of performing the two ʿEid prayers in the musallā as evidence that praying them there is preferable to praying them in the mosque—even though the proof in both issues is, as you can see, identical.

All of this supports the first of the two opinions cited by Imām al-Nawawī—may Allah have mercy on him—within the Shāfiʿī school.