What is the ruling on leaving the nearby mosque to pray in another mosque?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : Peace be upon you. What is your name?
The Shaykh : There is no answer, my brother, right now. This requires a session and it requires...
The questioner : Welcome. Peace and Allah's mercy be upon you.
The Shaykh : If a person did not pray in the mosque near him, and there is no violation in that mosque, and he went to another mosque and prayed there with the Muslim congregation, there is nothing wrong with that. Especially if, for example, he has an appointment there with some of his brothers and friends, or if he is going to give a sermon or a lesson or something similar. So, a Muslim simply turning away from praying in the mosque that is his neighbor to another mosque without any reason mentioned is not prohibited. But if there is something wrong (munkar) in the first mosque, he must leave it for the other mosque. Is this answer clear? Do you have anything else in your mind? I did not understand it.
The questioner : What Allah willed, our Shaykh, you covered all the possibilities. Excuse me.
Another questioner : It is upon all of us. What is the means? Absolutely not. They are equal in terms of the imam and the sunnah, and there is no munkar in either. So, if one of them is older, praying in it is better than the new one.
The Shaykh : The age of the mosque, whether old or new, is not a legal cause. Rather, what is looked at, whether it is the old one or the new one, is the size of the congregation. Wherever the congregation is larger, that is the stronger position. But, as the saying goes, one thing brings to mind another: many people intentionally pray in the farther mosque for no reason other than its distance and to increase their steps. This has no basis in the Shari'ah if the person intends it. However, if one person's house is near the mosque and another's house is far from the mosque, then the one whose house is far from the mosque undoubtedly has more good deeds than the one who is near the mosque, as came in the hadith of Jabir al-Ansari:
The Shaykh : There is no answer, my brother, right now. This requires a session and it requires...
The questioner : Welcome. Peace and Allah's mercy be upon you.
The Shaykh : If a person did not pray in the mosque near him, and there is no violation in that mosque, and he went to another mosque and prayed there with the Muslim congregation, there is nothing wrong with that. Especially if, for example, he has an appointment there with some of his brothers and friends, or if he is going to give a sermon or a lesson or something similar. So, a Muslim simply turning away from praying in the mosque that is his neighbor to another mosque without any reason mentioned is not prohibited. But if there is something wrong (munkar) in the first mosque, he must leave it for the other mosque. Is this answer clear? Do you have anything else in your mind? I did not understand it.
The questioner : What Allah willed, our Shaykh, you covered all the possibilities. Excuse me.
Another questioner : It is upon all of us. What is the means? Absolutely not. They are equal in terms of the imam and the sunnah, and there is no munkar in either. So, if one of them is older, praying in it is better than the new one.
The Shaykh : The age of the mosque, whether old or new, is not a legal cause. Rather, what is looked at, whether it is the old one or the new one, is the size of the congregation. Wherever the congregation is larger, that is the stronger position. But, as the saying goes, one thing brings to mind another: many people intentionally pray in the farther mosque for no reason other than its distance and to increase their steps. This has no basis in the Shari'ah if the person intends it. However, if one person's house is near the mosque and another's house is far from the mosque, then the one whose house is far from the mosque undoubtedly has more good deeds than the one who is near the mosque, as came in the hadith of Jabir al-Ansari:
Your homes are written down as your tracks.
داركم تكتب آثاركم.
Source
سلسلة الهدى والنور، المجلس 1255 — d3watuna.com (22:51)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.