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A
great majority of our Sunni brothers perform the Taraweeh
salat every evening after 'isha during Ramadhan. The Shi'a
Muslims don't. Many of the Sunni
brothers do not know that (according to their own ulema)
taraweeh is
mustahab,
but the great majority of them perform it as if it was as
wajib as the fasting itself.
In
1983, when I was in Saudi Arabia, a Saudi scholar, answering
a question in the local English newspaper, gave the
following details of how this special prayer was introduced
in Islam.
Soon
after the death of Abu Bakr in the 13th year of Hijra, Umar
took control of the Islamic State as the second Khaleefa. In
the Ramadhan of 14 Hijra, while he was going round the
streets of Madinah, he noticed people performing
supererogatory prayers (nafl) here and there, a few of them
in various places. A bright idea dawned upon him. He decided
to bring all the Muslims
together in a congregation and commanded them to recite one
thirtieth of the Qur'an every night. This way, each and
every Muslim man recited the entire Qur’an at least once
in the month of Ramadhan. A few days later, as he was going
round again, he saw the various congregations and was very
pleased. He is reported to have said at the sight:
'O!
What a beautiful bid'a (innovation) I have established.'
The
Saudi scholar writing this did not mention his source
references. But we have confirmed that the establishment of
taraweeh salat was done by Umar ibn
Khattab in the 14th year of Hijra as stated in:
Tareekh-ul-Khulafa by Jalaluddeen
Suyooti (d. 911 Hijra) and Murooj-uz Zahab by Mas'oodi
(d.346 Hijra).
Of
course, there are some slight differences between various
Sunni sects in how this special prayer is performed. The
Hanafi do twenty rak'at every night, and after the recital
of sura Al-Hamd, nearly one-twentieth of each juz is
recited. The others perform eight rak'at of prayer every
night, and in each one, nearly one eighth of a juz is recited.
The end result is that one full juz of the Qur'an is recited
every night. Some others do eleven rak'at. That has caused
serious dissent and discussion even in the United States.
Quoran
Divided Into 30 Parts
Although
I have not seen this anywhere in writing, but I have a
feeling that it was because of taraweeh that the Qur'an,
which was compiled by our Prophet ('s) into verses (ayat) and
chapters (suras), was divided into 30 equal parts and each
section named a juz (para in Farsi).
As
I said earlier, the Shi'a do not do this prayer although
they too are supposed to perform an extra 1000 rak'at of
supererogatory salat during the month of Ramadhan (as
prescribed in Mafateeh-ul-Jinan and other books) and they
also recite Qur'an at least once over.
Shi'a
Jurispudence And Logic
The
rejection of the taraweeh prayer by the Shi'a is not
out of spite. There are two reasons for it. One is
purely jurisprudential (fiqhee) and the other logical
('aqlee).
(1)
All religious teaching in the Shi'a faith is either taken
from the holy Qur'an
or from the Ahlul-Bayt ('a). Umar's (or
anybody else's for that matter) statements and acts have no
value for the Shi'a jurisprudents (faqeeh) in matters of
worship or law. Taraweeh is not mentioned in the Qur'an. It
was not done by the Prophet ('s) in his lifetime and it was never
done by any of the Imams ('a), neither did they ever speak about
it.
That
is the fiqeeh reason for not doing it.
(2)
When the Prophet of Islam ('s) compiled the Qur'an , he ('s)
also made statements giving the attributes of each
chapter (sura). In that, he ('s) gave details about which verses
and suras should be recited as part of salat. Some are
recited in pairs like al-Feel (ch.105) and Quraysh (ch.
106). Only those suras are supposed to be recited in salat
which express Allah's (swt) Power and Majesty etc. Sometimes a
part of a Sura is recited during salat; e.g., Ayat-al-Kursi
is recited in some special prayers. It is quite obvious that
some verses are not meant to be recited in salat, like those
describing the laws of divorce and menstruation. Although a
great majority of Muslims in the world do not understand
Arabic, those who do will agree that every verse cannot be
recited in salat. So, the Shi'a do recite the entire Qur'an
in Ramadhan and they do perform supererogatory prayers but
not as taraweeh.
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