among them is the ḥadith in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “Pray in your houses, pray in your houses.” Thus he instructed that prayer be offered at home, for the prayer a person performs in his house is superior—apart from the obligatory prayer. This shows that all of one’s regular Sunnah prayers should be performed at home—whether the rawātib, the Ḍuḥā prayer, the night-vigil (tahajjud), or any other voluntary act. The same ruling applies even in Mecca or Medina: performing the rawātib at home is still preferable to performing them in the mosque, whether that be the Sacred Mosque or the Prophet’s Mosque. The Prophet ﷺ gave this instruction while he was in Medina, even though a prayer in his mosque is better than a thousand elsewhere—save for the Sacred Mosque.

Many people today nevertheless prefer to offer their voluntary prayers in the Sacred Mosque rather than at home, and this stems from a kind of ignorance. For example, if you were in Mecca and the call for the dawn prayer had been made, and someone asked, “Is it better to perform the Sunnah of Fajr at home or in the Sacred Mosque?” we would answer, “At home.” If he asked, “Is the Ḍuḥā Sunnah better in the Sacred Mosque or at home?” we would say, “At home.” If he asked, “Is the night vigil better in the Sacred Mosque or at home?” we would still say, “At home.” And so on—everything except the obligatory prayers, for those must be performed in the mosques.

For this reason the Prophet ﷺ said in the last ḥadith: “Allah will place goodness in the house of the one who assigns part of his prayer to it.” In other words, when you pray in the house, Allah sets blessing in it and in the prayer you perform there. Part of that goodness is that your family, when they see you praying, emulate you, become accustomed to prayer, and grow to love it—especially the younger ones. Another benefit is that praying at home is further removed from showing off; in the mosque people see you, and a trace of ostentation may creep into the heart, whereas at home one is nearer to sincerity and further from ostentation. A further benefit is that when a person prays in his house he finds comfort—an inward ease and tranquility—without doubt.