The Tarawih Prayer: Which is better, in the mosque or at home, and which is better for a woman in this regard.

The Shaykh : ... They have differed, both in the past and in recent times, regarding the prayer of standing, the Tarawih prayer: should one pray it in the mosque or at home? Perhaps you have heard of such a disagreement?

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : Well, those who prefer praying in the mosque argue that the Messenger (peace be upon him), who said the verbal hadith: , is the one who established the recommended practice of standing in prayer in the mosque during Ramadan, and then he left it off out of fear, as is well known, that it might become obligatory upon them. So with the passing of the Messenger (peace be upon him), the legislation ended, and there is no suspicion of anything other than the legal ruling that the Messenger left his community with. So the majority returned to praying in the mosque in congregation, contrary to what is implied by his saying (peace be upon him): . Here it is said, and this is also the crux of the matter, as they say, this hadith . We say this is a generalization unless there is a counter-indicator. This counter-indicator, in many cases, becomes a reason for adjusting, and I do not say changing, the legal ruling. For example, it is known to everyone that a woman’s prayer in her home is better for her than her prayer in the mosque. And yet, we see in the Sunnah that the women in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) preferred praying in the mosque. How is this? The answer is that the rule is , but if there is a scientific, admonitory, or educational benefit in the mosque that the woman cannot obtain while praying and not leaving her home, then at that point the lesser becomes the greater, and the greater becomes the lesser. Is this clear up to here?
The Shaykh: The Tarawih prayer is the same. If there is a group of Muslims praying the standing prayer in the mosque during Ramadan, and the woman does not feel the virtue of the nights of Ramadan, but rather feels loneliness, because there is no scholarly group or group of righteous people around her who establish the prayer that is specific to the nights of Ramadan, but rather she feels that the life that we might call spiritual life today is elevated there in the mosque with the group of Muslims, then her prayer in the mosque at that time is better than her prayer in her home.
The Shaykh: Especially since the Messenger (peace be upon him) mentioned a hadith whose meaning is that whoever prays the 'Isha' prayer with the congregation or with the imam, then stands and prays with the imam, and leaves with the imam when the imam leaves, it is recorded for him as the standing of the night. So here there is a special virtue, the summary of which is the congregational prayer in this prayer that the Messenger revived for three nights. There is a special virtue in it equal to the standing of the night. And so the women in the time of the Messenger (peace be upon him) and in the eras that followed that era, especially in the time of 'Umar, the women used to attend the standing prayer in the mosque. So his saying (peace be upon him): , this is the general system, and it remains that all the recommended practices are better to be prayed at home, unless there is evidence that compels us to say otherwise than what this hadith necessitated. And in what we are discussing regarding the regular voluntary prayers (rawatib), there is no evidence that prefers any recommended practice, from the recommended practices of the five prayers, to be prayed in the mosque; rather, the opposite is the completion.

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : Yes, and may Allah protect you.