In the Musnad and Sahīh Muslim, Ibn ‘Abbās, may Allah be pleased with them both, reported:

“A woman fell ill and said, ‘If Allah heals me, I shall certainly set out and pray in Jerusalem.’ She recovered and then prepared to leave. Maymūnah came to greet her, and the woman told her about this. Maymūnah said, ‘Stay, eat what you have prepared, and pray in the mosque of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, for I heard the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, say: “One prayer in it is better than a thousand prayers in any other mosque, except the mosque of the Kaaba.”’”

This is the position of scholars generally, including al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abū Yūsuf—the companion of Abū Hanīfah—Ibn al-Mundhir, and others. They said: If someone vows to pray in Jerusalem, praying in the mosque of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, fulfils his vow. If he vows to pray in the mosque of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, praying in the Sacred Mosque fulfils his vow. If he vows to pray in the Sacred Mosque, however, praying elsewhere does not fulfil his vow according to the majority. This is the position of Ibn al-Musayyib, Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī according to the sounder of his two opinions, and Abū Yūsuf, the companion of Abū Hanīfah.

It is reported from Abū Hanīfah that no particular place becomes binding for prayer. This differs from vowing to visit the Sacred Mosque for Hajj or ‘umrah, which is indisputably binding. Abū Hanīfah based this on his principle that a vow makes an act obligatory only if acts of the same kind are obligatory under Islamic law. Mālik, Ahmad, and al-Shāfi‘ī, according to the apparent position of his school, hold that a vow makes any act of obedience obligatory, even if acts of that kind are not obligatory under Islamic law, as established in Sahīh al-Bukhārī on the authority of ‘Ā’ishah