Praying two raka'ahs upon entering the masjid, is it waajib (obligatory) or sunnah? (optional)

Posted Aug 17, 2009 by Aboo Thaabit with No Comments

After speaking about rulings concerning the masjid, Shaykh ibn ‘Uthaymeen – may Allah have mercy upon him – said:

And from it – i.e the rulings concerning masjids – is that if a person enters a masjid then he does not sit down until he prays two raka’ahs. He does not sit down until he prays two raka’ahs regardless of what time he enters [the masjid] whether in the morning, afternoon, night, day, sunrise or sunset whatever the time might be, because the Prophet said:

If anyone amongst you enters the masjid, then he should not sit down until he prays two raka’ahs. [Reported by Bukhaaree, Kitaab al-Tahajud no. 1163 and Muslim, Kitaab Salaat-ul-Musaafireen no. 70 and Ahmad in his Musnad 311/5]

So much so, that the Prophet was delivering a sermon to the people on a friday and a man came and sat down, so the Prophet stopped his sermon and adressed the man saying:

Have you prayed?

The man replied:

No.

The Prophet said:

Stand up and pray two raka’ahs and hasten them [Reported by Ahmad in al-Musnad 302/3, Tabaraanee in al-Kabeer 193/7 and Ibn Khuzaymah in his Saheeh 1453]

[So the Prophet orderded him to hasten in the prayer] in order for him to listen to the sermon [attentively]

Based on this hadeeth some of the ‘ulamaa [scholars] have said that the two raka’ahs prayed upon entering the masjid is in fact waajib (obligatory) because the Prophet orded this man to pray the two raka’ahs even though he’d be busy from listening to the sermon, and listening to the sermon is waajib in itself, and you would not be occupied from a waajib unless the thing your occupied with is a higher degree of waajib.

So because of this some scholars have reached the conclusion that if a person enters a masjid and he is in the state of wudhu and sits down and does not pray then he is sinning.