Answered by Shaykh Ilyas Patel
If one has prayed a fard salah alone, but then one has the opportunity to pray the same salah again in a jamaah, should one? What is preferable? If one does, is that salah counted as a fard ?
It is mentioned in Nuru’l-Idah as follows:
And it is makruh (tahriman) to come out of the mosque in which the adhan has been called until one prays the salat, except a person who is going out of the mosque to lead another congregation. (F: This is conditioned in Radd al-Muhtar by a person in whose absence the other congregation would not be normally established. Otherwise, even this is not an excuse.)
And if one comes out of the masjid after having performed the ( current time’s obligatory) salat individually, it will not be makruh (offensive) except if the congregation has started before one comes out in the Dhur and Isha, so one should join in these two salats (Dhur and Isha) as a supererogatory prayer ( nafl, with this intention of a nafl prayer). [Imam al-Shurunbulali, Nuru’l-Idah pg .108 ]
– If one has already prayed a fard and has an opportunity to pray it again, one should do so with the intention of Nafl.
– One can pray Dhur and Isha again, but not Fajr,Asr and Maghrib.
– As for Fajr, one would be praying a supererogatory prayer in a disliked time, as nafl prayers are not allowed after the fard of Fajr.
– As for Asr, one will be praying a supererogatory prayer (nafl )after Asr, which is makruh to do.
– And Maghrib, because supererogatory prayer of three rakats are not allowed, because the Prophet (Allah bless him & give him peace) forbade such prayers. As a result, in the Hanafi School praying an odd number of rak’ats is not permissible, except for the Maghrib and Witr.
[Faraz: As an interesting aside, Imam al-Shurunbulali’s works are full of baraka because he was a man of baraka, and like his kunya (Abu’l Ikhlas) a man of sincerity. This is because he was a sufi, of the Wafa’i branch of the noble Shadhili tariqa.]
And Allah knows best.
– Ilyas Patel