The ever spreading ritual whether to fold a prayer rug or not has always been a mystery.
Your parents always saying: Fold the corner of your prayer rug or Satan will be offering the prayer.
You never replied: Dad, its good if Satan wants to be pious again.
Nevertheless, this misconception has passed onto us from ages and our parents were told the same. Come on pals it’s 2024, let’s break the chain.
Ali, it is all good if you forget to fold the corner of your prayer rug, Satan will not pray on it. This myth may have formed from the following hadith:
The Noble Messenger of Allah Almighty ﷺ states,
‘You should fold your clothes such that the clothes feel comfort because the Devil does not wear the clothes that he sees as folded, and he uses those that he sees left spread out unfolded.’
[al-Mu’jam al-Awsat, vol. 6, p. 328, Hadīth no. 5698]
This Hadith never stated the extent of folding of clothes which directs to fully folding and keeping them safe. We can assume to fold the prayer mat as some other clothes that is to fully fold them and keeping them safe rather than just folding the corner of it. This way we can abide by the contradiction and keep our prayer mat clean and lasting for a long time.
As discussed here and stated by the following Hadith, prayer rugs evolved later.
Abu Sa’id al-Khudri reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said,
“The entire earth has been made a place of prayer, except for graveyards and washrooms.”
[ Sunan al-Tirmidhī , Hadith no. 317]
The prayer mat was not a concept in Islam rather it evolved over the ages as the need for a clean, tidy place to worship was needed. It started from the tree leaves and today we now have the Akimusalat prayer mat.
In the light of the above Hadiths, it can be deducted that the corner of Akimusalat prayer rug can be folded to prevent Satan from praying or just leaving it open. Only thing is if you want to fold it, fold it fully to keep it safe. Akimusalat prayer mats gives you the ultimate softness to fold them to put in your cupboard or just roll them to stand in the corner of your room.
