Some people, when they pray witr with
the imaam and he says salaam, they get up and do another rak’ah, because they want to
do more prayers before praying witr later in the night. What is the ruling on this action?
Is it considered to be forsaking the prayer with the imaam?

Praise be to Allaah.

We do not see anything wrong with this, and the ‘ulama’
stated that there is nothing wrong with doing this, so that his witr will be at the end of
the night. He will be considered to have prayed with the imaam until he finished, because
he stayed with him until he finished, and added another rak’ah for a shar’i reason,
which was so that he could pray witr later in the night. There is nothing wrong with this,
and it does not mean that he did not stay with the imaam until he finished, but he did not
finish with him – he delayed it a little longer.