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Is it better for a person to pray Fajr in the small mosque to bring the reward of congregational prayer to one man, or in the جامع mosque?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A man's prayer in his deserted neighborhood mosque is more virtuous than his effort to reach the جامع mosque, because it helps to revive the mosque and encourages the people of the neighborhood to pray in congregation, and he himself obtains the reward for it. Abandoning prayer there leads to its desertion. It is better for a person to pray in the mosque near him, due to the benefits that result from this, such as the mosque's revival and the fostering of harmony between the imam and the people of the neighborhood, unless there is a mosque with a special status, such as the Sacred Mosque (Masjid al-Haram) and the Prophet's Mosque (Masjid an-Nabawi). As for the hadith, "He does not take a step except that Allah raises him a degree by it and removes a sin from him by it," it refers to the nearest mosque if there is no mosque closer than it.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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