I miss being able to go to the mosque with the Covid19 situation. Haven’t been able to do Jummah prayers in a long time so just been praying at home on my own. Same with Tarawih.
Can we play a recording of a Salah being led and follow that from home? Or would this be considered an innovation?
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
Something interesting you may want to know is that tarawih in congregation during the lifetime of the prophet was prayed only very briefly.
On the first night of Ramadan, the prophet stood in masjid an-nabawi and started praying tarawih. A small number of sahaba saw him and started to pray behind him. On the second night, more sahaba came and then on the third some more. On the forth night several people came to pray but the prophet did not.
The following morning the sahaba asked the prophet why he didn’t pray and he responded by saying that he feared that if we prayed every night, Allah will make tarawih an obligation upon us and we will not be able to fulfil it. From then the sahaba started to pray tarawih on their own.
Many years after the death of the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم), Umar during his caliphate saw that the people were praying tarawih in Ramadan in the mosque. He saw some people praying by themselves and others in groups, and some were getting their recitation mixed up because others were reciting loudly.
Upon seeing this, Umar ibn Khattab rekindled the sunnah of the messenger of praying tarawih in congregation and got everyone together to pray beyond one imam, just as we see today
A point of benefit to note here is that you can pray tarawih on your own or with members of your family. Another point of benefit to note is that performing acts of worship in private is one of the best ways to increase your sincerity towards Allah.
Think about what you can do and not what you can’t do.
I’ll look for the Hadith for the story above and I’ll paste it here, just in case I’ve made any mistakes in what I’ve said.
