The Sunnah & Night Prayers

🏠 A house in Paradise for twelve rakʿah

The rawatib are the regular voluntary prayers tied to the five daily prayers. The Prophet ﷺ promised a great reward for keeping them:

Umm Habibah, who narrated it, said she never left these off after hearing it. Their breakdown, from the practice reported by Ibn ʿUmar, is:

• 2 before Fajr
• 2 before Dhuhr and 2 after Dhuhr
• 2 after Maghrib
• 2 after ʿIshaʾ

That is twelve. Ibn ʿUmar reported: "I memorised from the Prophet ﷺ ten rakʿah: two before Dhuhr and two after it, two after Maghrib in his house, two after ʿIshaʾ in his house, and two before the Fajr prayer." Another sound narration of Umm Habibah counts four before Dhuhr, giving twelve — so praying four before Dhuhr rather than two is also from the Sunnah.

Refs: Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1590 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn); Sahih al-Bukhari 1180

🌅 Better than the world and all it holds

Of all the rawatib, the two rakʿah before the Fajr prayer are the most emphasised. The Prophet ﷺ guarded them at home and on journeys, and said of them:

ʿAʾishah reported that he was never more careful about any voluntary prayer than the two before Fajr. They are prayed light and short, after the dawn enters and before the obligatory Fajr.

Refs: Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1582 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)

📖 How the Prophet ﷺ prayed the two before Fajr

What he recited. He kept them short, often reciting Surah al-Kafirun ("Qul yā ayyuha'l-kāfirūn") in the first rakʿah and al-Ikhlas ("Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad") in the second.

Lying down after. Having prayed them, he would lie down briefly on his right side before going out to the obligatory Fajr (Sahih al-Bukhari 1160).

If the iqāmah has been called, do not begin them — "When the prayer commences, there is no prayer but the obligatory one" (Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1540 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)); pray them after the fard instead. And they may be made up: when the company slept past Fajr on a journey, the Prophet ﷺ prayed the two rakʿah and then the obligatory Fajr after sunrise (Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1457 (Kitāb al-Masājid)) — showing the sunnah of Fajr is made up together with a missed obligatory prayer.

🌇 "Pray before Maghrib — for whoever wishes"

Between the adhān of Maghrib and its iqāmah, it is permitted to pray two light rakʿah. This is established from the Prophet ﷺ himself, who both commanded it and then, deliberately, loosened that command so no one would treat it as a binding sunnah:

His Companions acted on it in front of him. Anas ibn Mālik described the scene in the Prophet's ﷺ own masjid: when the muezzin called the adhān for Maghrib, men would hurry to the pillars and pray two rakʿah before the obligatory prayer, so that a stranger walking in would think the fard had already been prayed for the crowd of them at it.

These two rakʿah are one instance of a wider Sunnah: the window between every call and its iqāmah is an open door for voluntary prayer, left to a person's own choosing.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 1183; Sahih al-Bukhari 503, 625; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1831 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn); Sahih al-Bukhari 627; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1832 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)

⚖️ Its ruling, and the honest difference over it

Not one of the twelve rawatib. Notice that this prayer is absent from the confirmed rawatib counted earlier — Maghrib has two confirmed sunnah after it, none before. That is deliberate. The Prophet's ﷺ own words "for whoever wishes," and his dislike that people take it as a sunnah, place these two rakʿah in the category of a permitted, encouraged voluntary act — not a confirmed regular sunnah you are expected to keep like the two before Fajr. Whoever prays them has done a good thing; whoever leaves them has left nothing owed.

The madhhab difference

The jurists differed over how strongly to recommend it, and the difference is a respected one that traces back to how each side weighed two authentic concerns — the standing permission above, and the Sunnah of hastening the Maghrib prayer at its time:

• Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī: it is mustaḥabb (recommended), acting directly on the command "pray before Maghrib" and on the Companions praying it before the Prophet ﷺ without his forbidding them.
• Ḥanafī and Mālikī: they held it is better left, disliking it out of care to hasten Maghrib — whose time is narrow — and not to delay the congregation. They did not reject the hadith; they gave weight to the encouragement to pray Maghrib early.

Both positions are held by imams of guidance, and neither is a matter for censure. Whoever prays the two rakʿah lightly and is ready to stop the moment the iqāmah is called has the plain command and the Companions' practice with him; whoever hastens straight to the fard has the Sunnah of not delaying Maghrib with him.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 1183; Sahih al-Bukhari 627; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1540 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)

🌙 Seal your night with an odd number

Witr means "odd." It is a strongly encouraged prayer of an odd number of rakʿah — one, three, five, seven, and so on — prayed after ʿIshaʾ and made the last prayer of the night:

The Prophet ﷺ prayed witr and urged the believers to it. It can be prayed early in the night for one who fears not waking, or delayed to the end of the night for one confident of rising — and whoever fears he will not wake, let him pray witr before he sleeps. The smallest witr is a single rakʿah; three is common. There is genuine scholarly difference over whether witr is obligatory (the position of Abu Hanifah) or a strongly confirmed Sunnah (the position of the majority); the majority view is that it is a Sunnah so weighty it should not be abandoned.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 998; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1648 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)

🕌 The forms, recitation, and closing dhikr of witr

The forms. The simplest witr is a single rakʿah. Three may be prayed in either of two authentically-reported ways: as three rakʿah joined together with a single tashahhud and taslīm at the end (so that it does not resemble the Maghrib prayer), or as an even prayer "two by two" sealed with a single separate rakʿah — the night prayer being mathnā mathnā, and when one fears the dawn he prays one rakʿah to make what he prayed odd. Both are from the Sunnah.

What he recited. In a three-rakʿah witr the Prophet ﷺ would recite Surah al-Aʿlā (87) in the first rakʿah, al-Kāfirūn (109) in the second, and al-Ikhlāṣ (112) in the third.

After the taslīm, he would say "Subḥāna'l-Malik al-Quddūs" ("Glory to the King, the Most Holy") three times, raising and prolonging his voice on the third.

Refs: Jamiʿ at-Tirmidhi 462 (sahih) — the recitation · Sunan an-Nasaʾi 1699/1733 (sahih) — the closing dhikr · Sahih al-Bukhari 990 & Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1644 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn) — the night prayer two-by-two, sealed odd

🤲 The duʿāʾ the Prophet ﷺ taught for witr

In the final rakʿah of witr it is recommended to make the duʿāʾ of qunūt. Its wording is not left to invention: al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī — the Prophet's ﷺ grandson — said, "The Messenger of Allah ﷺ taught me words to say in the witr prayer:"

Before or after rukūʿ?

There is genuine, tolerated ikhtilāf over where in the rakʿah the qunūt is said. It is soundly reported from companions such as Ubayy ibn Kaʿb that qunūt was made before rukūʿ, after finishing the recitation — the position of Abu Hanifah. Others held it is said after rising from rukūʿ, as the Prophet ﷺ did in the qunūt of calamity (qunūt an-nāzilah) in the obligatory prayers (Sahih al-Bukhari 1002) — the position of ash-Shafiʿi and Ahmad. Both are transmitted from the salaf; whichever a person does, his witr is sound, and it is not a matter for dispute or censure.

Recommended, not obligatory

The Prophet ﷺ taught this duʿāʾ, so qunūt in witr is legislated — but it is not transmitted that he did it every single night, and the detailed descriptions of his night prayer do not mention it as a constant. The scholars therefore held it to be mustahabb (recommended): whoever says it has done well, and whoever leaves it — on a given night or altogether — has abandoned nothing obligatory. Saying it sometimes and leaving it sometimes keeps closest to what is narrated.

Refs: Sunan Abi Dawud 1425; Jamiʿ at-Tirmidhi 464; Sahih al-Bukhari 1002

🕌 The best prayer after the obligatory

Standing in prayer at night — tahajjud or qiyam al-layl — is the most virtuous voluntary prayer. Allah addressed His Prophet ﷺ about it directly:

How much did the Prophet ﷺ pray? ʿAʾishah described his night prayer as about eleven rakʿah, in Ramadan and outside it:

⏳ The last third of the night

The most blessed portion for this prayer is the final third of the night, when Allah — in the manner that befits His majesty — descends to the lowest heaven:

Practically: pray any even number of rakʿah, two by two, and seal the night with witr. If you already prayed witr after ʿIshaʾ and then rise to pray more, you do not repeat witr — "there are no two witr in one night" (reported by Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasaʾi, graded sahih).

Refs: 17:79; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 2639 (Kitāb aṣ-Ṣiyām); Sahih al-Bukhari 1147; Sahih al-Bukhari 1145

☀️ Two rakʿah in the bright of the morning

Ṣalāt aḍ-Ḍuḥā is a voluntary prayer of two or more rakʿah offered in the forenoon. Its time begins once the sun has fully risen — about a spear's height above the horizon, roughly fifteen to twenty minutes after sunrise — and lasts until shortly before the sun reaches its zenith ahead of Dhuhr. The best of it is in the middle of that window, when the morning has grown warm. The Prophet ﷺ placed it among three counsels his Companion would never leave:

Its reward is striking: these two rakʿah stand in for the charity owed each morning by every joint of the body:

The minimum is two rakʿah, prayed two by two, and one may pray more. It is a confirmed voluntary prayer: the Prophet ﷺ praised it and counselled his Companions to keep it, though he did not himself pray it every single day — the mark of a beloved nafl, not an obligation. Even two short rakʿah, prayed at home or wherever the forenoon finds you, discharge the day's gratitude of every limb.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 1178; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1565 (Kitāb Ṣalāt al-Musāfirīn)

🌒 Two signs of Allah — not omens

When the sun or the moon eclipses, the Sunnah is not to watch idly, nor to read fortunes into the sky — it is to stand before Allah in prayer. Ṣalāt al-Kusūf is a confirmed sunnah (sunnah muʾakkadah) prayed in congregation, for the Prophet ﷺ prayed it with the people in the masjid when the sun eclipsed in his time, then stood and corrected their belief in one sentence:

This is a matter of tawḥīd, not astronomy alone. The people of jahiliyyah took eclipses as omens tied to the death or birth of the great; the Prophet ﷺ cut that belief off at the root. An eclipse announces no one's death and no one's fortune — it is a sign of Allah's power, sent so that hearts turn back to Him in fear and prayer. Attributing events in the heavens to created beings, or reading them as omens, is from the doorways to shirk — the eclipse prayer is its practical refutation.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 1044; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1979 (Kitāb al-Kusūf)

🕌 How it is prayed — a form unlike any other

The eclipse prayer has a distinctive form found in no other prayer: two rakʿah, but each rakʿah has two standings and two rukūʿ, with long recitation throughout. ʿĀʾishah described the Prophet's ﷺ prayer when the sun eclipsed:

1. First rakʿah: he stood and recited at length, then made a long rukūʿ; then he rose and recited again — a long standing, but shorter than the first — then bowed a second long rukūʿ, shorter than the first; then he prostrated with two sujūd.
2. Second rakʿah: the same again — two standings and two rukūʿ, each shorter than the one before it — then the two sujūd and the taslīm.

Four standings, four rukūʿ, four sujūd in two rakʿah. It is prayed in congregation from the moment the eclipse begins, and by the time he ﷺ finished, the sun had cleared — then he delivered the address quoted above. It applies equally to a solar or a lunar eclipse, and is accompanied by what the hadith itself commands: duʿāʾ, takbir, and charity, until the eclipse passes.

Refs: Sahih al-Bukhari 1044; Sahih Muslim — site reader no. 1979 (Kitāb al-Kusūf)