Bismillahi Al-Rahmani Al-Rahim
A Bit About Tarawih
Q
As-salaamu `alaykum,
I am acquainted with the proofs for tarawih's being 20 raka`at. Do you
know which scholars say it is 8, and what proofs they provide? Is this a
matter of ikhtilaf among the scholars, and if so, which number is accepted
among the majority of `ulama' (if you know; if not, the Hanbali and
Shafi`i positions will be fine).
A
Wa `alaykum al-salam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu
The Malikis go with 36 rak`a being the preferred number. Their evidence is
that this is what the people of Medina were doing.
The people who prefer eight rak`a cite the hadiths concerning tahajjud,
namely that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) never exceeded
11 or 13 rak`at in his night prayer throughout the year, even during
Ramadhan. These hadiths show us that his tahajjud (Allah bless him and give
him peace) was of a very long duration. Their argument is that it is
better to stick to what the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace)
did.
Sufyan Al-Thauri, the Hanafis, the Shafi`is, and the Hanbalis agree that
the preferred number of rak`a for tarawih prayer is twenty. Their evidence
is that this is what `Omar (Allah be well pleased with him) gathered people
to do, and it is what `Ali (Allah be well pleased with him) gathered people
on. The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) ordered us to follow
the sunnah of the rightly guided caliphs after him, and since `Omar and
`Ali (Allah be well pleased with them) are both rightly guided caliphs
without any doubt, and since there is not objection to what they did, it
should be followed. Thia evidence is strong for scholars who give high
weight to ijma` sukuti (=where a number of scholars agree on something and
no one is known to object), the sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and
the fatwa of a Companion (Allah be well pleased with them one and all)
where no objection is known. Lest it be claimed that these scholars have
ignored something the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), it
should be noted that not only do they employ the action of the Prophet
(Allah bless him and give him peace) regarding tahajjud for tahajjud, but
they also employ his command (Allah bless him and give him peace) to follow
the sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (Allah be well pleased with
them).
After saying this, we should all remember that tarawih is considered a
personal sunnah while community solidarity and love for one another is
considered personally obligatory. The people who want to leave after eight
or ten should do so without any commotion and without thinking badly about
the others, and the people who remain until twenty should do so without any
commotion and without thinking badly about the others. If this is
impossible, then that which is personally obligatory should be given
precedence over that which is a personal sunnah.
The people who claim that they raise their voices concerning this matter
with the intention of putting down an innovation need to remember that
there are conditions for ordering the right and forbidding the wrong, and
in order to sincerely claim to be following their evidence their night time
prayer throughout the year will need to be just as the Prophet (Allah bless
him and give him peace) did it. They should also bring to mind the
consequences of declaring twenty rak`a to be a misguided innovation and
that whoever does it to be misguided, since such a statement entails
declaring `Omar bin Al-Khattab and `Ali bin Abi Talib (Allah be well
pleased with them) to be misguided and callers to misguidance. The
absurdity of such a statement needs no further comment.
And Allah knows best.
wa al-salamu `alaykum
--musa