The ruling on what a person praying should do when the doorbell rings

Question:
Sister S. A. from Cairo in the Arab Republic of Egypt says in her question: If I am praying and the doorbell rings, and there is no one in the house except me, what should I do?

Answer:
If the prayer is voluntary, the matter is lenient, and there is no harm in breaking it to find out who is knocking at the door. As for the obligatory prayer, one should not rush to break it unless there is something important that one fears missing. If it is possible to signal by saying tasbih (praise of Allah) if it is a man, or by clapping if it is a woman, so that the person at the door knows that the person inside the house is busy with prayer, that is sufficient, as the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . So if it is possible to inform the person knocking that the man is in prayer by saying tasbih, or the woman by clapping, then do that. If this does not work due to distance or because he cannot hear, there is no harm in breaking the prayer out of necessity, especially if it is a voluntary prayer. As for the obligatory prayer, if one fears that the person knocking is for something important, there is no harm in breaking it either, and then one should repeat it from the beginning, and praise be to Allah.