A man entered the mosque after the prayer had ended; is it permissible for him to follow a latecomer? And what is the ruling on the second congregation?

The student : If you please, explain to us regarding following a latecomer. If a man comes to the mosque and finds that the congregational prayer has ended, is it his right or is it permissible for him to follow a latecomer? This is in response to the hadith where a man came to the mosque and found that the prayer had been completed, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: .

The Shaykh : As for responding to a hadith, may he be far from that.
The student : Regarding the interpretation of the hadith.

The Shaykh : I know what you mean, but we want to improve the wording. In any case, the hadith you referred to is related to the second congregation, and one can derive your question from it, which is following one who is following. The hadith is . Its relevance is that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed one day, and after he had prayed, a man entered the mosque intending to pray. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to his companions who had prayed with him, , and in another narration, . Many people assume that this indicates the permissibility of the second congregation, which is practiced in many mosques today. Two or three people enter the mosque after the regular imam has prayed, one of them steps forward and prays, then a second congregation comes, one of them steps forward and prays, and so on, with multiple congregations in the same mosque. Their evidence for this is this hadith. It has absolutely no relation to these congregations we mentioned earlier. Why? Because the congregation that was established in the mosque of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), in his sight and in his presence, is not these congregations that occur today, which we mentioned earlier. This congregation that was formed by the man who had prayed with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) is a congregation for voluntary prayer, not for obligatory prayer. Because the one who prayed following this man, who missed the congregational prayer, is performing a voluntary prayer behind that man. So his prayer is a voluntary prayer, and consequently, the congregation is a congregation for voluntary prayer. What clarifies and confirms that it is not valid to use this hadith as evidence for these congregations practiced today is that the hadith explicitly states that there is a man who gave charity and a man who received charity. The congregations held now do not have these two descriptions: one who gives charity and one who receives it. We understand from the words of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), , that the one who gave charity is rich and the one who received it is poor. So who is the one who gave charity and who is the one who received it? The one who had prayed with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) and gained the virtue of the congregation, which is twenty-five or twenty-seven degrees, is undoubtedly the rich one. And the one who missed the congregation is the poor one. So the one who received this charity had already prayed the obligatory prayer with the congregation, and this one missed that obligatory prayer, so he is the one who received the charity. Now, when three or four people enter the mosque and they have all missed the congregation, and one of them steps forward, who is the one who received the charity? No one. They are all poor. Why? Because they all missed the congregation; they missed the twenty-seven degrees. So applying this hadith to these congregations that occur today is, in reality, imposing on the hadith what it cannot bear. The clearest thing is to note the "one who gave charity" and the "one who received it." This does not exist in these congregations because they are all presumed to have missed it, whereas there, there was one who was presumed to have missed it (the imam) and one who was performing a voluntary prayer (the one who received the charity). Therefore, using this hadith as evidence is, as al-Shafi'i and others said, regarding the one who has already prayed the obligatory prayer with the congregation and then attends another congregation: is it permissible for him to repeat that prayer with the other, prescribed congregation? They said yes, and this is the evidence. Or, is it permissible for one who has prayed the obligatory prayer to lead a congregation that has not prayed the obligatory prayer? The answer is yes. Because this occurred in the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), where Mu'adh ibn Jabal, as in Sahih al-Bukhari, used to pray the 'Isha' prayer behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), then he would go to his tribe and pray that same prayer with them, meaning he would lead them in the 'Isha' prayer. They knew him to be the most knowledgeable, the most learned, and the best reciter among them, so they knew that on one hand he was praying behind the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), so they would wait for him to return to them to pray the 'Isha' prayer with them. The narrator of the hadith, Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah al-Ansari (may Allah be pleased with him), said, "It was a voluntary prayer for him and an obligatory prayer for them." So Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him) had already prayed and then repeated it, so this is permissible. Similarly, it is permissible for one who has prayed the obligatory prayer to find another congregation and pray that same prayer with them, but it will be a voluntary prayer for him. There are evidences for this form, including the hadith of Imam Malik in al-Muwatta', that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) prayed in the Mosque of al-Khayf, known today, in that place, the Fajr prayer. When he finished the taslim, he found two men who had withdrawn to a side, and their position indicated that they had not participated in the prayer with the congregation. So he (peace and blessings be upon him) said to them, . They said, "Yes, O Messenger of Allah." He said, . They said, "O Messenger of Allah, we had prayed in our tents." He said, . So this Companion who had prayed with the Messenger and stood up in response to the Messenger's call, , prayed the same prayer with him as a voluntary prayer. Also, among the evidences for this form or something similar to it is his (peace and blessings be upon him) saying, as in Sahih Muslim from the hadith of Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, he said, he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: , and in another narration, . So the hadith does not absolutely indicate the legitimacy of the second and third congregations, due to the difference in their form from the form approved by the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). Once this is known, we can move to the original question: a man entered the mosque and the imam had finished the taslim, and one of them, who was a latecomer by one rak'ah or more, stood up. Is it permissible for this entrant to follow this latecomer? The answer is no. The reason is that the second congregation is not known in the time of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), and we have learned the answer regarding this hadith. Secondly, it came in Sahih al-Bukhari that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) went out in the morning with the Fajr prayer to relieve himself, and al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah (may Allah be pleased with him) was with him, and it was his (peace and blessings be upon him) habit
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He used to go far away to relieve himself so as to be out of sight. The time for the Fajr prayer arrived, and when they found that the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) was delayed beyond the usual time for the Fajr prayer, they appointed 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf to lead them. This incident occurred during a journey. He prayed with them, and then the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) performed the ablution, and al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah poured the water for his ablution. Then they set out walking to the mosque where the congregation was. When al-Mughirah ibn Shu'bah saw that they were praying, the matter was grave to him, and he was about to clap his hands to alert the imam, because the regular imam had arrived and was present. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) gestured to him to let them be. He and al-Mughirah followed the imam. When the imam concluded the prayer with the taslim, the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) stood up and prayed the one rak'ah that he had missed, and al-Mughirah did the same. Here, it was possible for al-Mughirah to follow the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), especially since he was his Prophet; but none of that happened. Nor did the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), after the prayer, indicate to al-Mughirah that he should have followed him. Rather, when the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) concluded the prayer, he turned to the people who had prayed behind 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf to reassure them, because something had weighed on their hearts. For the first time in their lives with the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), they saw him praying behind an individual from among his Ummah. To alleviate the shock of this, he said to them: meaning, if the regular imam is absent or delayed for the prayer, appoint one of you and do not delay yourselves from the prayer. And this, although he was the master of mankind (peace and blessings be upon him) and the master of the messengers, encouraged them that if the imam is delayed, they should appoint from among themselves one who is fit for the imamate. The point here is that the occasion was for establishing a second congregation in any form; yet none of that occurred. Therefore, the answer is that this latecomer should not follow [the late imam] but should pray alone, as was the practice of the Salaf. As Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah narrated in his Musannaf from al-Hasan al-Basri, who said: "The Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), when they missed the prayer with the congregation, would pray individually." The Imam al-Shafi'i commented on this report and added clarification and explanation, saying: "And they were able to gather again, but they did not do so because they disliked to gather in the mosque twice." The reality that we know from ourselves and from others is that whoever has the idea in his mind that a second congregation is legitimate, that idea will return to him with a bad effect, which is that he will be lax in hastening to the prayer with the first congregation, on the pretext that there is a second and third congregation, and so on. And I, as I hinted earlier, know this from myself. When I used to believe that the second congregation and those after it were prescribed, I would often leave the prayer with the congregation because in my psychological conviction it was possible for me to pray a second or third congregation. On the contrary, when it became established in my mind that there is no second congregation, I became one of the most eager people to pray with the first congregation, because I know that if I do not hasten to this good, I will miss it and find nothing to compensate me for it. This is sufficient, and praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. And we ask permission of the master of the house here and depart, thanking Allah, if Allah wills.