to the congregational prayer for having eaten garlic. Yet this is open to examination, for it is possible that his words “for three days” pertain to the saying itself—that is, he uttered it three times. Indeed, this is the more apparent sense, because the reason for the ban is the presence of the odor, and that does not last for so long.

Moreover, the prohibition in the aforementioned aḥādīth is one of outright forbiddance, a view adopted by the Ẓāhirīs, among them Ibn Ḥazm, whose exact words were cited a short while ago. By Allah’s leave, this is the correct position for several reasons:

First: The default ruling of a prohibition is that the act is unlawful; one may not depart from that principle except on the basis of evidence or a contextual indicator, and none exists here.

Second: The command is accompanied by the emphatic nun (nūn al-tawkīd al-mushaddadah), which reinforces the sense of prohibition and strictness.

Third: The ruling causes the person to miss the congregational prayer, which—according to the soundest opinion, as will be detailed in its proper place—is obligatory. Abandoning it is therefore forbidden. If entering the mosque were not even more severely prohibited for those described in the ḥadīth, the Wise Lawgiver would not have punished them by excluding them from it, nor deprived them of the multiplied reward mentioned earlier. Allah, exalted is He, says: “Indeed, Allah does not wrong even the weight of a speck; and if there is a good deed, He multiplies it and grants from Himself a tremendous reward” (Q 4:40). Allah knows best.

From what has been stated, it is clear that invoking this ḥadīth to argue that the congregational prayer is not an individual obligation is unsound, for the Lawgiver only barred them from it as a punishment for coming while in a state more blameworthy than simply omitting the prayer without excuse.