in the mosque, and he does not leave it unless he is already yearning for the next one so that he may return and perform it there. Thus his heart remains bound to the mosque; what is meant is not that he sit there without interruption.

12 – When someone is free of work or wealthy enough not to need an income, it is better for him to stay in the mosque awaiting the next prayer, for this carries immense merit. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Whoever sits in the mosque waiting for the prayer is (counted as) in prayer.”

This ḥadith is narrated by Sahl ibn Saʿd al-Sāʿidī. Al-Nasāʾī and Aḥmad record it through the chain of ʿAyāsh ibn ʿUqbah, who said: “Yaḥyā ibn Maymūn related to me that Sahl ibn Saʿd stood before us and said, ‘I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say…,’” and he reported the tradition. The wording cited here is Aḥmad’s; al-Nasāʾī uses “used to” (kāna) instead of “sat” (jalasa).

The chain is sound: regarding both ʿAyāsh ibn ʿUqbah and his teacher Yaḥyā ibn Maymūn, al-Nasāʾī remarked, “There is no harm in him,” and in al-Taqrīb they are each described as “trustworthy.”

His statement, “The one who waits for a prayer after completing a prayer is like a horseman whose steed has sped swiftly with him in the path of Allah upon his flank”—that is, in full gallop—“the angels of Allah continue to invoke blessings upon him so long as he does not break his state of purity or stand up; he is engaged in the greatest form of ribāt (spiritual sentry duty).”