1.With regards to prayer times, is it better to do them Awwal-Vahkt or in jama’at? I mainly ask this for Asr & Isha prayers because pretty much every mosque I know combines the prayers instead of praying Asr and Isha in their Fazeelah time.
2. Also, from experience I’ve realised it is very challenging to maintain the nawafil when attending jama’at. Since the nawafil of zuhr has to come before zuhr prayer, and the mosque reads the zuhr prayer right on time, there’s no time to do the nawafil. Then there is usually not enough gap between their zuhr and asr prayers to do the asr nawafil. So is it better to just not do the nawafil in these cases, or is it better to not go to jama’at in these cases in order to maintain the nawafil? Or is there some work around solution?
3. Since one has to do the nawafil of zuhr and asr before zuhr/asr prayers, they cannot offer zuhr/asr prayers at the prime time. If these prayers are delayed though because the person is offering the nawafil, they they still get the reward of praying in the prime time?
4. I read a hadith in the book “Sunan an-Nabi” that one should not do more than the 51 daily ra’kats (even if they can) because they would be leaving the Sunnah. What if we want to pray more than that, not with the intention of nawafil, but just because we enjoy prayers? Is that ok? How is this hadith reconciled with the ahadith that say some of the Aimmah (a.s) used to pray 1000 raka’ts every night (mentioned in same book)?