he would then go first to Fāṭimah’s house and only after that to the dwellings of his wives.

Al-Ṭabarānī and others related this wording, as Ibn Ḥajar notes in Fatḥ al-Bārī; in our manuscript, however, the names of “the others” have been left blank.

At first glance, the initial ḥadīth might suggest that the purpose of the two-rakʿah prayer was merely to sit in the mosque, not specifically to mark one’s return from travel. Yet its two corroborating reports—especially the last of them—state plainly that the prayer was performed because one had just come back from a journey, and the same point is confirmed by the forthcoming ḥadīth of Jābir.

Al-Nawawī comments in his commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim:
“From these ḥadīths we learn the recommendation that a traveler, upon first arriving home, should pray two rakʿahs in the mosque. This prayer is intended as a devotional act tied to returning from travel; it is not merely the mosque-greeting prayer (taḥiyyat al-masjid). The texts cited above are explicit on this point.”

Ibn al-Qayyim, while listing the rulings and lessons contained in the story of the Three Who Stayed Behind, writes:
“One of them is that the sunnah for someone coming back from a journey is to enter the town in a state of ablution, to begin with the House of Allah before his own house, to pray two rakʿahs there, then to sit with the Muslims, and only afterward to go to his family.”

Indeed, the Prophet ﷺ himself ordered this, so it deserves due attention. Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh, may Allah be pleased with him, said:
“We were on a journey with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. When we reached Madinah he told me, ‘Go to the mosque and pray two rakʿahs there.’ So I went in, prayed them, and then returned.”