Chapter: It is recommended to offer voluntary prayers in one’s house although it is permissible to offer them in the masjid, whether that is a regular voluntary prayer or any other, except for the public ritual prayers, namely, `Id prayer, the eclipse prayer, prayers for rain and Tarawih, and prayers that can only be offered in the masjid, such as greeting the masjid, and prayers that are recommended to be offered in the masjid, namely the two rak`ah following tawaf
Ibn 'Umar reported Allah's Apostle ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) as saying: Observe some of your prayers in your houses and do not make them graves.
Ibn 'Umar reported Allah's Apostle ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) as saying: Pray in your houses, and do not make them graves.
Jabir reported Allah's Messenger ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) as saying: When any one of you observes prayer in the mosque he should reserve a part of his prayer for his house, for Allah would make the prayer as a means of betterment in his house.
Abu Musa reported Allah's Apostle ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) as saying: The house in which remembrance of Allah is made and the house in which Allah is not remembered are like the living and the dead.
Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) as saying: Do not make your houses as graveyards. Satan runs away from the house in which Surah Baqara is recited.
Zaid b. Thabit reported: The Messenger of Allah ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) made an apartment with the help of the leaves of date trees or of mats. The Messenger of Allah ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) went out to pray in it. People followed him and came to pray with him. Then they again came one night and waited (for him), but the Messenger of Allah ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) delayed in coming out to them. And when he did not come out, they cried aloud and threw pebbles at the door. The Messenger of Allah ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) came out in anger and said to them: By what you have been constantly doing, I was inclined to think that it (prayer) might not become obligatory for you. So you must observe prayer (optional) in your houses, for the prayer observed by a man in the house is better except an obligatory prayer.
Zaid b. Thabit reported that the Messenger of Allah ( صلی اللہ علیہ وسلم ) made an apartment in the mosque of mats, and he observed in it prayers for many nights till people began to gather around him, and the rest of the hadith is the same but with this addition: Had this (Nafl) prayer become obligatory for you, you would not be able to observe it.