town nor on a journey.
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ʿAbd Allah ibn Masʿūd (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “Whoever wishes to meet Allah tomorrow as a Muslim should perform these five prayers wherever the call to them is heard. Allah has prescribed for His Prophet the paths of guidance, and performing these five prayers in the mosques is one of those paths. If you were to pray them in your homes you would abandon the Sunnah of your Prophet, and were you to abandon the Sunnah of your Prophet you would go astray. In the Prophet’s time I saw that no one stayed away from the congregation except a hypocrite whose hypocrisy was well known; a man would be brought, helped along between two men, until he was set in the row.” Reported by Muslim (654).
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Ibn al-Qayyim said: “Whoever reflects on the Sunnah will realize that performing the prayers in the mosques is an individual obligation, except when a legitimate excuse permits missing the congregation. It is known by necessity of the religion that Allah ordained the five daily prayers to be established in the mosques, as He, the Exalted, says: ‘And direct your faces at every place of worship’ (al-Aʿrāf 7:29). The proofs from the Qur’an and the Sunnah on this subject are many.”
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The majority of scholars state: When the obligatory prayer is performed in its complete form, two results ensue: the duty is discharged and the reward is earned. If it is performed in an incomplete manner, the duty is discharged but the reward is forfeited.