Salat al-Tarawih
- Author died
- 1441 AH
- Editions
- al-Jāmiʿah al-Islāmīyah bi-al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah
Salat al-Tarawih (The Tarawih Prayer) is a legal and hadith treatise by the Indian-born scholar Muhammad Diya al-Rahman al-Azami (d. 1441 AH / 2020 CE), examining the rulings, historical performance, and textual evidence regarding the nightly communal prayer in Ramadan.
Scope and Structure
Written as part of his Fiqh al-Sunnah jurisprudential studies while serving as an assistant professor at the College of Hadith, the treatise addresses the key legal and hadith questions concerning Tarawih prayer. It begins with the linguistic definition of tarāwīḥ (the plural of tarwīḥah, meaning a period of rest), explaining that the prayer was named after the pause taken by worshippers after every four rak'ahs. The author then cites scriptural exhortations for night vigils during Ramadan, including the traditions of Abu Hurayrah and 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf.
The work examines three central themes:
- Congregation versus individual prayer: The author presents the differing scholarly stances on whether praying Tarawih in congregation at the mosque is superior—the view of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Shafi'i, and Abu Hanifah—or whether praying individually at home is preferred, as held by Malik ibn Anas, Abu Yusuf, and others relying on the hadith of Zayd ibn Thabit. He explains that after 'Umar ibn al-Khattab united the worshippers behind a single reciter, the communal prayer became an established public symbol of Islam, though one who prays at home incurs no blame.
- The nature of the prayer: The author establishes that Tarawih, Qiyam Ramadan, and Tahajjud in Ramadan refer to the same underlying night prayer rather than distinct rituals, citing jurists such as Anwar Shah al-Kashmiri and Badr al-Din al-'Ayni.
- The number of rak'ahs: The work surveys three major positions: eight rak'ahs (the preferred view of hadith scholars), twenty rak'ahs (held by the three schools of jurisprudence), and thirty-six rak'ahs (practiced by the people of Madinah to match the circumambulations performed between rests by worshippers in Mecca).
Methodology and Hadith Analysis
Al-Azami relies on comparative chain-of-transmission analysis (takhrij) and evaluation of narrators (jarh wa-ta'dil). He evaluates the prophetic reports regarding eight rak'ahs, particularly the hadith of 'A'ishah in the Sahih collections and the hadith of Jabir ibn 'Abd Allah narrated by Ibn Khuzaymah and Ibn Hibban, grading the latter as hasan.
He critically reviews reports supporting twenty rak'ahs, arguing that:
- The prophetic report from Ibn 'Abbas transmitted by Abu Shaybah Ibrahim ibn 'Uthman is weak (da'if) and isolated (tafarrada bihi).
- The authentic transmission from 'Umar ibn al-Khattab in Malik's al-Muwatta'—via Muhammad ibn Yusuf from al-Sa'ib ibn Yazid—specifies eleven rak'ahs (eight plus three witr), corroborated by Abd al-Aziz al-Darawardi and Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Qattan.
- Contradictory reports mentioning twenty or twenty-one rak'ahs through 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani or Yazid ibn Khusayfah are either isolated, anomalous (shadhdh), or subject to defects.
- Narrations attributing twenty rak'ahs to 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud, and Ubayy ibn Ka'b contain broken chains or unreliable transmitters.
Al-Azami concludes that performing eleven rak'ahs is the strongest position because it aligns directly with the established practice of the Prophet, while noting that the broader matter accommodates flexibility according to the capacity of the worshipper, as stated by al-Shafi'i and Malik.
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