Saʿīd ibn Yazīd al-Azdī said, “I asked Anas ibn Mālik, ‘Did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ use to pray in his sandals?’ He replied, ‘Yes.’”

This report was recorded by al-Bukhārī, Muslim, al-Nasāʾī, al-Tirmidhī, al-Dārimī, al-Ṭaḥāwī, al-Bayhaqī, al-Ṭayālisī, and Aḥmad. Al-Tirmidhī commented, “The ḥadith of Anas is ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ, and the people of knowledge act upon it.”

Shaykh Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir wrote in his notes on al-Tirmidhī:

“We know of no disagreement among the scholars over the permissibility of praying in sandals, whether inside a mosque or elsewhere. Yet look at the condition of today’s general public—even some who claim scholarship: how they censure a man who prays in his sandals! The Prophet ﷺ did not command their removal for prayer; he merely instructed that one should inspect them, and if they contain any filth he should rub them against the ground—that is their purification. No other ruling concerning them was laid down.”

Ibn al-Qayyim, in Ighāthat al-Lahfān min Makāʾid al-Shayṭān, summarized the matter as follows:

“One of the practices that disquiets the hearts of those plagued by obsessive doubts is praying in sandals, even though it is a sunnah of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, established both by his personal practice and by his command.” After citing the ḥadith of Anas and the forthcoming report of Shaddād ibn Aws, he added:

“It was said to Imām Aḥmad, ‘May a man pray in his sandals?’ He answered, ‘Yes, by Allah!’ Yet you see the people of anxiety: if one of them happens to attend a funeral prayer wearing sandals, he stands on his heels as though on burning embers, refusing to pray in them.”