In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Compassionate
Assalaamu alaykum
Dear Friends
I pray that you are well.
Counsels on Regular Devotions
You should allocate specific periods of time for your habitual activities such as eating, drinking, and working for a livelihood.
Know that no state can be sound in the presence of neglect, and no wealth useful in the presence of heedlessness.
The Proof of Islam, may Allah spread his benefit, said: 'You should structure your time, arrange your regular devotions [awrad], and assign to each function a set period of time during which it is given first priority but which it does not overstep. For if you abandon yourself to neglect and purposelessness, as the cattle do, and just do anything that may occur to you at any time it happens to occur to you, most of your time will be wasted. Your time is your life, and your life is your capital; it is the basis of your transactions [with Allah], and the means to attain to everlasting felicity, in the proximity of Allah the Exalted. Each of your breaths is a priceless (because irreplaceable) jewel, and when it passes away it never returns.'
You should not occupy all your time with only one wird, even if it be the best, for you would then miss the barakah of multiplying and varying your awrad. Each wird has a particular effect on the heart, a light, a flow of assistance [madad], and a rank with Allah. Furthermore, when you move from one wird to another you escape becoming bored, indolent, impatient, or weary. Ibn 'Ata'illah alShadhili, may Allah have mercy on him, has said: 'Because the Real knew of the presence of boredom in you, He created a variety of acts of obedience.'
Know that awrad have a great effect in illuminating the heart and controlling the senses, but these only appear and become established with perseverance and repetition, and their performance at specifically allocated times.
If you are not one of those who fill all their night and daytime hours with devotional activities, then assign to yourself some awrad to persevere with at specific times that you make up for if missed, so that your soul becomes accustomed to keeping to them; when your soul despairs of your abandoning them altogether when you miss them, it will hasten to perform them in time. My master, Shaykh 'Abd alRahman alSaqqaf, may Allah be pleased with him, has said: 'Whoever has no wird is a qird [monkey]!' Another gnostic has said: 'The arrival of blessings depends on the awrad; therefore, the man who outwardly has no wird has no inward aspect [of any consequence].'
Be moderate and keep to the middle way in everything. Choose those acts which you are capable of persevering in. The Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'The acts most pleasing to Allah are the most constant, even if few.' And: 'Choose the acts of which you are capable, for Allah will not grow weary before you.'
It is Satan's way to entice the seeker [murid] at the beginning of his quest to be excessive in his devotional activities, the purpose being to make him retreat, either by giving up acts of goodness altogether, or performing them incorrectly, and the accursed one does not care with which of these two he afflicts a man.
Awrad usually take the form of supererogatory prayers, Qur'an recitations, the acquisition of knowledge, invocation [dhikr] or reflection [fikr]. We shall now mention some of the proprieties with which these religious activities need to be performed. You must have a wird of supererogatory prayers, in addition to the textually established ones, and should assign a definite time for it and a definite number which you can constantly sustain. Some of our virtuous predecessors, may Allah have mercy on them, had a wird of one thousand rak'as each day and night. Such, for instance, was 'Ali, son of alHusayn, may Allah be pleased with them both; others had a wird of five hundred, three hundred, and so on.
Know that the ritual prayer has an outer form and an inner reality. You will not have established the prayer and its outward proprieties, such as correct standing, prostration, tasbih, recitation, bowing, and so forth until you have established both its outer aspect and its reality. As for its outer aspect, this constitutes those obligatory conditions set for it by Allah, while its reality is that one be present with Allah, sincerely intend it to he purely for His sake, approach Him with complete resolution, and collect one's heart so that one's thought is restricted on the prayer and nothing else, and maintain the courtesies necessary for communing with Allah. The Prophet has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'The man in prayer is communing with his Lord.' And: 'When the servant rises to his prayer Allah turns His Face toward him.'
You should not occupy yourself with unspecified supererogatory prayers at a time designated for a sunna which the Messenger of Allah either did or spoke about until you have completed the maximum designated number.
An example of this is the rak'as laid down before and after the obligatory prayers. These are sufficiently well known as to need no further comment.
Another example is the witr prayer which is a well established and certain prayer. Some scholars have been of the opinion that it is obligatory. And the Prophet has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Allah is witr [not an even number] and He likes what is witr. Therefore observe the witr.' And: 'Witr is truth.' Its maximum is eleven rak'as and its appropriate minimum three. For those who have an established habit of rising for prayer during the latter part of the night it is better to perform it then. The Prophet has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Make your night prayer the witr.' But those who have no such habit would do better to perform it after the night ['isha'] prayer.
A further example is the mid-morning [duha] prayer which is a very useful and blessed prayer. Its maximum is eight rak'as, though some have said twelve, and its minimum two. The best time for it is when the sun is high and about a quarter of the day has gone by.
The Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, said: 'Morning comes and on each of your fingers a charity is due. Each tasbiha [glorification] is a charity, each tahmida [praise] a charity, each tahlila [unification of Allah (Ibn 'Ata' Illah, said: Your reaching Allah is reaching the knowledge of Him, for other than that, Our Lord is too exalted for anything to be joined with Him or for Him to be joined with anything)] a charity, each takbira [magnification] a charity, and enjoining good and forbidding evil is charity.
Two rak'as performed in the mid-morning would supply for all that.' If this sound hadith had been the only one transmitted concerning the merit of this prayer it would have been sufficient.
Yet another example is the prayer between the sunset [maghrib] and night ['isha'] prayers. Its maximum is twenty rak'as and its average six. The Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'Allah erects a palace in the Garden for the one who prays twenty rak'as between the two night prayers.' And he has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'The one who prays six rak'as after the sunset prayer and does not speak ill in between will have them equal the worship of twelve years.'
It is a sunna to give life to the period between the two night prayers with devotions. Many hadiths and other traditions have been transmitted regarding its merit. It should be enough to know that when Ahmad ibn Abul-Hawari asked his Shaykh, Abu Sulayman, may Allah have mercy on them, whether he should fast by day or give life to the period between the two night prayers, he advised him to do both, to which he said: 'I cannot, for if I fast I become occupied with breaking my fast at that time.' He replied: 'If you cannot do both, then leave daytime fasting and give life to the time between the night prayers.' 'A'isha, may Allah be pleased with her, has said: 'The Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, never entered my house after the late night prayer [Isha] without praying four or six rak'as.' And he said, may blessings and peace be upon him, 'Four rak'as after the night prayer equal the same on the Night of Destiny [laylatul-qadr].'
Pray at night, for he has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'The best prayer after the prescribed ones is the night time prayer.' And: 'The superiority of nighttime over daytime prayers is like the superiority of concealed over public charity.' (And it has been related that concealed charity is seventy times better than public charity.) He has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Keep rising in prayer at night, for it was the way of the virtuous who came before you, it draws you nearer to your Lord, atones for your sins, forbids you from evil, and protects the body from sickness.'
Know that the one who prays after the night prayer has risen at night. Some of our predecessors used to pray their wird early in the night; however, rising after some sleep constitutes a defeat for the devil, an opposition to the ego, and contains a wondrous secret. This is the tahajjud which Allah commanded His Messenger to do in His saying: Perform tahajjud by night, as an act of supererogation for you. [Qur'an, Al-Isra' 17:19]
It has been related that Allah wonders at a servant who rises from his bed, from his wife's side, to pray. He takes pride in him before His angels and turns His noble Face towards him. Know that it is an ugly thing in the seeker of the hereafter not to rise in the night; how [can he not] when a seeker should always be asking for more and exposing himself to His gifts at all times. For he has said, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'There is in the night a time that no Muslim servant [of Allah] encounters and in which he asks Allah for some good of the world or of the hereafter but that He grants it him. This happens every night.' (Tradition related by Muslim]
In one of Allah's revealed scriptures it is said: 'He has lied who claims to love Me but who when night falls sleeps [and leaves] Me. Does not every lover love to be alone with his beloved?'
Shaykh Isma'il ibn Ibrahim alJabarti, may Allah have mercy on him, has said: 'Allah has gathered every goodness into the night, and no sainthood was ever determined [i.e. formally granted] to a saint except by night.' My master al 'Aydarus 'Abd Allah ibn Abu Bakr 'Alawi has said: 'The one who wishes for the Lordly Purity should break himself in the depths of the night.' The Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, has said: 'Allah descends every night to the Terrestrial Heaven when only the last third of the night remains, and says: "Is anyone praying, that I may answer him? Is anyone seeking forgiveness, that I may forgive him? Is anyone asking, that I may give to him?" until the break of day.' Had this been the only hadith exhorting to night vigils it would have sufficed, so how must it be when both the Book and the sunna are full of encouragements and exhortations to it? The gnostics have in their night vigils noble unveilings and subtle experiences which they receive in their hearts, of the felicity of nearness to Allah, the pleasures of intimacy with Him and of communing and conversing with Him (Exalted is He!). One of them has said: 'If the people of the Garden are in a state similar to ours, they are indeed living pleasantly!' Another has said: 'The people of the night during their nights are as the people of pleasures in their pleasures.' And another has said: 'For the last forty years nothing aggrieved me but the break of day.' This felicity occurs only after enduring the bitterness and hardships which are in vigils, as 'Utba al-Ghulam said: 'I endured the night for twenty years, then enjoyed it for twenty more.'Should you ask: 'What should I recite during the night prayers, and how many rak'as should I pray?' then know that the Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, had no set recitation in his tahajjud. It is good to recite the Qur'an, one part after another, so that you complete it in a month, or less or more according to your energy. As for the number of rak'as, the maximum that has been related of the Messenger of Allah, may blessings and peace be upon him, is thirteen; seven and nine are also reported, but the most frequent figure is eleven.
The total purport of all the relevant hadiths is that it is encouraged and recommended, when you wake up, for you to rub sleep off your face with your hands and say: 'Praised and thanked be Allah, Who gave us life after causing us to die, and unto Whom is the resurrection.' And recite the last verses of surat Al-'Imran (The Family of 'Imran.) Then brush your teeth with the siwak, perform a full ablution [wudu], pray two short rak'as, then add to them eight long ones. You can pray them in units of two, or four, or even do the full eight with only one salutation [salaam], for all these have been reported. If you then find that you still have energy, pray any additional prayers that you may wish, then pray three rak'as as witr, either with one salutation or two. Recite in the first rak'a surat al-A'la (The Most High)[Qur'an, 87], in the second al-Kafirun (The Disbelievers) [Qur'an,109], and in the third al-Ikhlas (Sincerity) [Qur'an, 112], and the last two suras
[Al-Falaq 113 and An-Naas 114].
Do not think that the witr which is eleven rak'as is one thing and the rak'as we have just mentioned another. Only that which we have mentioned is reported of the Messenger of Allah's night prayers. Know this! Allah is Vast and Knowing!
Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa 'ala aalihi wa sahbihi wassallam.
And Allah knows best.
Wassalaam
The Proof of Islam (Hujjat ul-Islam) is the Imam Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Born in Tus in Khorasan in 450 H, he wrote about two hundred books and treatises, the most important and best known of which is Ihya 'Uliim ai-Din [The Revival of the Religious Sciences]. He died in 505 H.
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