Is it permissible to delay the prayer after the beginning of its time with the aim of performing it in congregation?

Waiting for the congregation to gather is preferable to praying alone at the beginning of the prayer’s time. Mohammad Ibn ‘Amr Ibn al-Hasan Ibn ‘Ali Ibn Abu Taleb (may Allah be pleased with them all) said, “We asked Jabir Ibn ‘Abdullah (may Allah be pleased with them) about the prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and he said, ‘He used to pray Dhuhr at midday, ‘Asr when the sun was still high, and Maghrib after the sun had set. [As for] ‘Isha’, when the people were many, he would perform it earlier, and when they were few, he would delay it. He also prayed Fajr while it was still dark’” (recorded by Bukhari and Muslim in their Sahih collections).

The hadith scholar, al-Qastallani, commented on this in Irshad Al-Sari (1:502) saying, “This indicates that delaying a prayer with the express aim of performing it in congregation is better than praying it individually at its earliest time. In fact, it points to something even more specific — that delaying the prayer to wait for a larger congregation is even more preferable.”

And Allah the Almighty knows best.