“Her sister should lend her a cloak so that she may share in the blessings and the Muslims’ supplication.” Once the Prophet ﷺ prescribed that the women come out, he also prescribed that the prayer be held in an open expanse so that the emblem of Islam might be made manifest.

The Prophetic sunnah established by sound hadiths shows that the Prophet ﷺ performed both ʿId prayers in the open desert outside the town. This remained the practice during the first generation; they never prayed the ʿId in mosques except when necessity—such as rain—required it. Such is the position of the four Imams and of other leading scholars—may Allah be pleased with them all.

I know of no one who opposed this save for the view reported from al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him, who preferred the mosque when it could accommodate all the townspeople. Even then, he held that praying in the open space was unobjectionable, and he explicitly stated that he disliked holding the two ʿId prayers in the mosque if it could not hold everyone.

Thus, these authentic hadiths and others, together with the continuous