Published on 20th November, 2002

All About Taraweeh

By Syed Mohsin Naquvi

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.