Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ

He ﷺ slept the first part of the night and regularly rose in its last part for night prayer (Tahajjud), then rested until the mu'adhdhin gave the call to Fajr.

When asked what deed is most beloved to Allah, he ﷺ answered: performing the five daily prayers at their proper, early stated times.

He warned against squandering the two blessings most people fail to value while they have them: good health and free time.

He ﷺ lay down to sleep with his hand placed under his cheek, and taught his companions to make wudu at bedtime and lie down on the right side.

"Whenever the Prophet ﷺ intended to go to bed, he would recite: 'Bismika Allahumma amutu wa ahya (With Your name, O Allah, I die and I live).' And when he woke up from his sleep, he would say: 'Al-hamdu lil-lahil-ladhi ahyana ba'da ma amatana; wa ilaihi an-nushur (All the Praises are for Allah Who has made us alive after He made us die (sleep) and unto Him is the Resurrection).'"

He ﷺ ate with his right hand, and taught others to do the same.

He never criticised food — if he liked it he ate it, and if he disliked it he simply left it without complaint.

"Allah's Messenger ﷺ said, 'I do not take my meals while leaning (against something).'"

He ﷺ loved sweet things and had a particular fondness for honey.

He used the miswak (tooth-stick) regularly, especially upon waking.

He said he would have made the miswak obligatory before every prayer, were it not for the hardship it would place on his ummah.

He preferred white garments, saying they are among the best clothes to wear.

He used perfume and never turned down a gift of it when offered.

Trimming the nails and clipping the mustache are counted among the natural practices of fitrah, not left beyond forty nights.

Those closest to him described him as smiling more than anyone else they knew.

He was never obscene or coarse in speech, and taught that the best among people are those with the best character.

"The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: 'The best of you is the best to his wives, and I am the best of you to my wives…'"

He tied speech to faith itself: whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should not harm his neighbour, should honour his guest, and should speak good or remain silent.

A man kept coming back asking him for advice, and each time he ﷺ gave the same short answer: "Do not get angry."

He taught that kindness shown even to an animal is rewarded by Allah.

He ﷺ sat among his companions with no special place of honour — a stranger arriving would sometimes be unable to tell which man was him until he asked, until his companions eventually built him a simple raised seat of packed earth so newcomers could recognise him.

At home he was, in Aisha's words, "a man like other men" — he mended his own sandals, patched and sewed his own garments, and milked his own sheep rather than leaving such tasks to someone else.

A bedouin once yanked his cloak so roughly it left a mark on his shoulder, then rudely demanded he be given some of the state's wealth. He ﷺ simply turned, smiled, and ordered that the man be given what he asked for.

Aisha said he ﷺ never struck a servant or a woman with his hand, and never took personal revenge for a wrong done to him — he only acted when something Allah had made sacred was violated, and then only for Allah's sake.

He set the bar for how to want things for other people: none of you truly believes until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

Asked which Islam is best, he ﷺ answered: feeding people, and greeting with salam those you know and those you do not know.

He forbade cutting people off: it is not lawful for a Muslim to forsake his brother beyond three nights — and the better of the two is the one who greets first.

Liked: sweets and honey.

Liked: perfume — he said "women and perfume have been made dear to me, and my comfort has been provided in prayer."

Liked: dates — he would break his fast with fresh dates before praying, or dried ones if none were fresh; a household with dates in it, he said, does not go hungry.

Liked: gourd (a type of squash) — Anas ibn Malik once saw him picking pieces of it from around the edges of a dish, and said he had loved eating it ever since that day.

Liked: being fragrant — Anas said he never touched silk softer than the Prophet's ﷺ palm, and never smelled musk or ambergris sweeter than his natural scent.

Disliked: the smell of raw garlic or onion before attending the mosque, telling those who had eaten it to keep away until the smell passed.

Disliked: cruelty to animals — he taught that a woman was condemned for shutting a cat away without food or water until it died, neither feeding it nor letting it go free to forage for itself.

Disliked: wastefulness — he modelled economy with water even in worship, performing wudu with a single mudd of water and ghusl with one sa' (up to five mudds).

Aisha said he ﷺ never prayed more than eleven rak'ahs at night, whether in Ramadan or outside it — four, then four ("do not ask about their beauty and length"), then three of Witr.

He ﷺ kept i'tikaf — a spiritual retreat inside the mosque — during the last ten nights of Ramadan every year until his death, after which his wives continued the practice.

"I heard Allah's Messenger ﷺ saying: 'By Allah! I ask for forgiveness from Allah and turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times a day.'"

He ﷺ taught a fixed dhikr for after every obligatory prayer: "SubhanAllah" thirty-three times, "Alhamdulillah" thirty-three times, and "Allahu Akbar" thirty-four times.

He described the religion itself as ease, warning that whoever makes it needlessly severe on himself will be overcome by it — so be moderate, aim for what is right, and give glad tidings.

Asked what the Prophet ﷺ did at home, Aisha said: he kept himself busy serving his family, and when the time for prayer came, he would get up and go pray.

He ﷺ would lead the prayer while carrying his granddaughter Umamah on his shoulder — setting her down for each prostration, then picking her back up as he rose.

He raced Aisha on foot during a journey and she won. Years later, after she had put on some weight, he raced her again and won himself, saying: "This makes up for that."

"The Prophet ﷺ was the best of all the people in character. I had a brother called Abu `Umar, who, I think, had been newly weaned. Whenever he (that child) was brought to the Prophet ﷺ the Prophet ﷺ used to say, 'O Abu `Umar! What did Al-Nughair (nightingale) (do)?' It was a nightingale with which he used to play."

A man watched him ﷺ kiss his grandson al-Hasan and remarked he had ten children and had never kissed one of them. He ﷺ replied: "Whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy."

Anas ibn Malik said: "I served the Prophet ﷺ for ten years, and he never said to me, 'Uf' (a minor harsh word denoting impatience) and never blamed me by saying, 'Why did you do so or why didn't you do so?'"

"Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears. Do not ask them (slaves) to do things beyond their capacity (power) and if you do so, then help them."

He taught that the truthful, trustworthy merchant will be raised together with the prophets, the truthful, and the martyrs.

He invoked Allah's mercy on the person who is lenient when he sells, lenient when he buys, and lenient when he asks for what he is owed.

Visiting the sick is one of five rights a Muslim owes another — alongside returning a greeting, accepting an invitation, following a funeral, and responding to a sneeze.

He described the reward as walking in the khurfah of Paradise — literally, its ripe fruit for the picking — for as long as the visit lasts.

Visiting an ailing bedouin, he offered simple, hopeful words rather than a diagnosis: "No harm — a purification, if Allah wills."

"Whenever Allah's Messenger ﷺ paid a visit to a patient, or a patient was brought to him, he used to invoke Allah, saying, 'Take away the disease, O the Lord of the people! Cure him as You are the One Who cures. There is no cure but Yours, a cure that leaves no disease.'"

He regularly visited a young servant boy of his who was not even Muslim — during the boy's final illness, he sat by him and invited him to Islam, which the boy accepted shortly before his death.