“Prayer in congregation is better than prayer alone by twenty seven degrees.”
-Source: Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī 619, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 650
As we can pray Taraweeh both in congregation or Jamat and at home. So, my question is:
Will we gain 27 times more reward for praying Taraweeh in congregation or Jamat than praying at home?
From the wording of the hadith:
"Prayer in congregation is better than the prayer of a man by himself by twenty-seven degrees." (Al-Muwatta')
or
Prayer said in a congregation is twenty-five degrees more excellent than prayer said by a single person. (Sahih Muslim)
One could conclude that this applies for any prayer.
But when we check more details we find:
"Whoever establishes prayers during the nights of Ramadan faithfully out of sincere faith and hoping to attain Allah's rewards (not for showing off), all his past sins will be forgiven." (Sahih al-Bukhari)
Scholars like al-Qustalani (in Irshad as-Saari إرشاد الساري his commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari) and al-Manawi (in his Fayd al-Qadir فيض القدير) concluded that this hadith is more general and doesn't restrict performing the qiyam (night prayers including taraweeh) in Ramadan in a mosque, but it refers to having the intention to perform it faithfully out of sincere faith and hoping to attain the rewards from Allah be it at home or in a mosque and it also doesn't mean to pray the whole night, or refer to praying only but any kind of good deed such as recitation of the qur'an or du'a in a part of the night fall under this hadith.
Therefore in fatwa islamweb #228970 they concluded that the above ahadith apply only for Fard prayers.
Praying Taraweeh (nafil/voluntary prayer) at home is better if you can. Simply because it was practice of Prophet s.a.w and also of people like Umar R.A. "Al-Bukhaari (2010) narrated from ‘Abd ar-Rahmaan ibn ‘Abd al-Qaari’ that he said: I went out with ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab (may Allah be pleased with him) one night in Ramadan to the mosque, where we saw the people in scattered groups, one man praying by himself, and another man praying with a group of people following his prayer. ‘Umar said: I think that if I unite these people behind one reciter, it will be better. Then he decided to do that, so he united them behind Ubayy ibn Ka‘b. "
Notice how Umar r.a is the one who tells them to pray under one imam yet he is not the one leading them or praying with them. For fard (obligatory) prayers we know he used to lead them, he even was murdered while leading the Fajr prayer. So Nawafil (voluntary) prayers are encouraged to be done at home.
wallahu aalam.
