Salatul Tasbih · 2 min read
Can Salatul Tasbih be prayed in jamaat?
The general position is that voluntary prayers are prayed individually.
Salatul Tasbih is a voluntary prayer, so the same principle applies to it.
What scholars discuss is the difference between an occasional gathering and a standing, advertised congregation, and that distinction is where the answers separate.
The general principle
Voluntary prayers, apart from the ones the sunnah established in congregation, are ordinarily prayed alone.
Tarawih, the eclipse prayer and the rain prayer were established in congregation. Most other voluntary prayers were not.
Salatul Tasbih is not among the ones established in congregation.
The answer on this site
Mufti Salim Qasmi: pray it individually, not in congregation.
This page keeps the wider disagreement below rather than removing it, because scholars do differ on whether an occasional congregation for a voluntary prayer is permitted. The position above is the one this site follows and states; it is not a claim that the other view has no argument.
Occasional versus regular
This distinction sits at the centre of the discussion.
A few people praying a voluntary prayer together on a given night, without announcement, is treated differently from a mosque putting it on a schedule and inviting the public.
The concern with the advertised version is that it gives a voluntary prayer the appearance of an established congregational sunnah, which the narration does not support. That concern is recorded in the fiqh literature rather than in a hadith, and this page does not quote a page and edition for it.
Why this is disputed twice over
There are two disagreements stacked here, and they are worth separating.
The first is whether the prayer is established at all. Hadith scholars differ on the underlying narration, which is set out on is Salatul Tasbih authentic.
The second is whether a voluntary prayer, granting the first, can be organised in congregation.
Someone who grades the underlying hadith as weak never reaches the second question.
The practical answer
Pray it on your own. That is the position this site follows, and it costs you nothing under any of the views.
If your mosque holds it in congregation on certain nights, that reflects a ruling its scholars have taken. A reference site is not the place to overrule your local leadership, and this is not a matter to argue over.
For your own practice, alone and unhurried is the sound choice, and it lets you take the 300 at your own pace.