The Taraweeh of the Salaf-us-Saliheen

Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) stated:

The Most Superior of my Ummah is my generation (i.e. the

Sahabah), then those who follow them (the Tabieen), then

those who follow them (the Tab-e-Tabieen).

(Bukhari, Muslim)

Indeed, those who will still be alive after me will see many

differences; so hold fast to my Sunnah, and the Sunnah of

the Khulafa Rashideen (i.e. Hadhrat Abu Bakr, Hadhrat

Umar, Hadhrat Ali, and Hadhrat Uthman radhiyallahu

anhum) after me. Adhere to and cling tightly to it and beware

of newly-invented matters, for every newly-invented matter

is an innovation and every innovation is deviation.

(Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud)

PART ONE A SUMMARY OF THE VIEW OF THE SALAF-US-SALIHEEN

The issue of Taraweeh exposes thoroughly the falsity and

hollowness of the claims of the Salafi sect of being faithful

representatives of the Salaf-us-Saliheen the first three

generations of this Ummah regarding whom Rasulullah

(sallallahu alayhi wasallam) testified to their superiority. Any

Deen, such as that expounded by the Salafis, modernists

and other deviant sects, which is at variance with the Deen

of the Salaf-us-Saliheen is a deviated imposter of a Deen

which has no relation to the blessed Sunnah of Rasulullah

(sallallahu alayhi wasallam).

Even a perfunctory perusal of the rulings of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen as transmitted by all the early Fuqaha reveals the

fact that there was complete Ijma (consensus) of the Salaf-

us-Saliheen, including the Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum),

that Taraweeh consists of 20 rakats of congregational

prayers. This was the position of ALL the Aimmah

Mujtahideen, the authoritative scholars of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen, who based their ruling on the Ijma (consensus) of

the Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum).

While the Salafi and modernist sects of today continue to

conjure up various different opinions, ranging from 20

rakats being branded a Bidah (al-Albani, Ahlul Hadeeth, &

co.) to the overwhelmingly liberal trend today of 8 rakats, 2

rakats, half a rakat, and anything and everything being

valid ikhtilaaf, the ONLY ikhtilaaf transmitted from the Salaf-

us-Saliheen is in regards to the extra four rakats of Nafl

prayed in the period of rest that would occur after every four

rakats during the 20 rakats of congregational prayer.

As shall be demonstrated, while the Salaf-us-Saliheen of

Makkah Mukarramah would perform Tawaaf during these 4

periods of rest, the Salaf-us-Saliheen of Madinah

Munawarrah would pray an extra 4 rakats, thus bringing

their total to 20 + 4 x 4 = 36 rakats. Another 3 rakats or 5

rakats or Witr would bring the total number in Madinah to 39

or 41 respectively. However, in terms of the minimum base

of 20 rakats of congregational prayers, there was absolutely

no difference amongst the Salaf-us-Saliheen.

Allamah Ibn Qudamahs Summary of Position of the Salaf-

us-Saliheen

Before providing a brief background on the basis of the

ruling of the Salaf-us-Saliheen, and casting a cursory look

into the blessed environment in which the Four Imams and

other Imams of the most superior of generations of this

Ummah had begun the codification, systemization, and

compilation of the Deen of the Salaf-us-Saliheen, we shall

first quote the early authority of the Hanbali Madh-hab,

Allamah Ibn Qudamah (rahmatullahi alayh), whom even the

Salafis accept to be amongst the most authoritative

transmitters of the rulings of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, to

serve as a useful summary of the view of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen with regards to the Taraweeh prayers.

Allamah Ibn Qudamah (rahmatullahi alayh) states in his

famous, authoritative work known as al-Mughni:

The Mukhtaar (i.e. the adopted and chosen) position

according to Abu Abdullah (i.e. Imam Ahmad) is 20 Rakats

and this is the position of ath-Thawri, Abu Hanifa and Shafii.

Malik said that it is 36 Rakahs while asserting that it is the

age-old practice connected with the Amal (practice) of the

people of Madinah, for Saalih, the Mawla of Taw-amah, said,

I have found the people standing up for 41 rakats, 5 of

which was the Witr salaat.

[The proof] for us is that when Umar (radhiyallahu anhu)

gathered the people behind Ubayy ibn Kab (radhiyallahu

anhu), he lead them for 20 rakats. And it has been narrated

by al-Hasan that Umar gathered the people behind Ubayy

bin Kab who lead them for 20 rakatsthis was also

narrated by Abu Dawud, and narrated by Saa-ib bin Yazeed

(radhiyallahu anhu) through a number of routes. Malik

narrated on the authority of Yazeed bin Roomaan, that he

said, The people would stand up for prayer for 23 rakats in

Ramadhan, during the era of Umar (radhiyallahu anhu),

and also on the authority of Ali (radhiyallahu anhu) that he

ordered a man to lead them (the people) for 20 rakats in

Ramadhan. And this is like Ijma (consensus).

Elsewhere, Allamah Ibn Qudamah mentions that the 20

rakats is based on the Ijma of the Sahabah the highest

form of Ijma possible:

The Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum) made Ijma upon this in

the era of Sayyiduna Umar (radhiyallahu anhu).

Allamah Ibn Qudamah mentions that Taraweeh is a Sunnah

Muakkadah an emphasized Sunnah omission of which is

blameworthy without a valid excuse:

The prayer of the month of Ramadn is twenty rakats i.e.

Salaat-ut-Taraweeh, and it is Sunnah Muakkadah.

Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) was the first to make

it a SunnahTaraweeh was only ascribed to Umar ibn al-

Khattab because he gathered the people behind Ubayy ibn

Kab, so he would lead them in Salaat-ut-Taraweeh.

Allamah Ibn Qudamah states regarding the only Ikhtilaaf

reported from the Salaf-us-Saliheen, that of 39 rakats or 41

rakats, which was the practice of the people of Madinah:

Some of the Ahlul Ilm (i.e. the Ulama of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen) said: This practice of the people of Madinah was

due to the fact that they desired to equal the people of

Makkah who would perform 7 Tawaafs between each

Tarweehah (i.e. in the rest period after every 4 rakats),

hence the people of Madinah would pray 4 rakats as a

substitute for the 7 (Tawaafs). And that which the Sahabah

(radhiyallahu anhum) were upon is the most favoured and

most deserving of being followed.

Allamah Ibn Qudamah makes it explicitly clear in al-Muqni, another authoritative

book written for the purpose of recording the rulings of the Madh-hab of Imam

Ahmad ibn Hanbal, that the Taraweeh and Tahajjud prayers are two separate

and distinct prayers:

And Taraweeh is 20 rakats to be prayed in Ramadhan in congregation, and

Witr is to be performed after it in congregation. However, if he prays Tahajjud

then he prays Witr after it.

Here ends the excerpts from Allamah Ibn Qudamah which is

merely a re-iteration of what innumerable early Fuqaha have

transmitted from the best of generations. A glimpse into this

mass-transmission of the ruling of the Salaf-us-Saliheen will

be given in this article insha-Allah.

Before proceeding, it must be noted that the early Fuqaha

did not pull the rulings they had written down out of their

back pocket. They were not reliant on a few copies of

Bukhari Sharif, Muslim Sharif, Al-bani Sharif etc. they

happened to stumble across in their living room, nor were

they reliant on Hazrat Google Sharif, or a smattering of

Arabic they happened to learn on the side during a life-time

of indulgence in Haraam and Mushtabah (doubtful) matters.

These Ulama were Paragons of piety, immersed in Zikrullah,

who understood that the Noor of Ilm (Knowledge of the

Deen), and its correct understanding, was purely wahbi i.e.

divinely bestowed by Allah (azza wa jal) and thus completely

dependent on Taqwa, Wara (abstinence from even

permissible matters), and firm adherence to every minute

Sunnah of Habeebullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam). Such

Ulama-e-Haqq acquired all their knowledge directly from

numerous other Ulama-e-Haqq, often numbering in the

hundreds, who themselves acquired their Deen from their

numerous teachers, and so on, through continuous,

unbroken chains that would stretch just a few generations

back to the Imams of the Salaf-us-Saliheen.

Thus, when Allamah Ibn Qudamah or Imam Nawawi affirms

that Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal or Imam Shafii, who were the

leading scholars of the third and final tier of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen, held the position that Taraweeh is 20 rakats, then

such attributions are based on a firm conviction stemming

from a direct acquisition of knowledge from a multitude of

Ulama-e-Haqq who in term had acquired their knowledge

from another multitude of Ulama-e-Haqq, and so on,

through multiple Sanads (chains) consisting of only a few

names between them and the Imams of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen.

In any case, statements from the Imams of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen themselves, and their direct students, will be

produced to confirm the unanimous ruling of 20 rakats

based on the Ijma of the Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum),

and recorded by all the early Fuqaha of this Ummah.

PART TWO

A SNAPSHOT OF THE AMAL (PRACTICE) OF THE

SALAF-US-SALIHEEN

We shall now provide a snapshot of the Taraweeh Amal (actual practice) of all

the Salaf-us-Saliheen a practice that was mass-transmitted from

generation to generation before being recorded in detail in the authoritative

books of Fiqh of all Madh-habs. The fact that every report of the Fuqaha-e-

Mutaqaddimeen (the early Fuqaha during and in close proximity to the era of

the Salaf-us-Saliheen) pertaining to the Taraweeh Amal (actual practice) of

the Salaf-us-Saliheen conforms exactly to what Allamah Ibn Qudamah stated,

leaves not the slightest doubt that the minimum base of 20 rakats was the

unanimous practice of the Salaf-us-Saliheen.

While reading the eye-witness accounts, testimonies, and ruling of the Salaf-

us-Saliheen with regards to Taraweeh below, bear in mind that the

specification or special emphasis on a particular number that is not explicitly

found in the Sunnah causes a practice to become a reprehensible Bidah

according to Ijma (consensus). To illustrate this concept of Bidah, if a Salafi

mutation today were to introduce a fast-track or instant Taraweeh of 4

rakats in mosques around the world, or another deviant sect were to extend

the 20 rakats Taraweeh practice of Ramadhan to other sacred months of the

year, believing that Taraweeh is just another name for Tahajjud and thus

permissible throughout the whole year, then such innovations would be

classed as reprehensible Bidahs according to the Shariah.

According to this principle of Bidah which the Salafis accept wholeheartedly,

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Imam Shafii, and the Salaf-us-Saliheen who all

condoned and adopted the widespread specification of 20 rakats for

Taraweeh, as shall be demonstrated below, were all completely complicit in

the perpetration of wholesale Bidah.

Bear in mind that there existed literally hundreds of thousands of Ulama-e-

Haqq besides the Four Imams during that blessed era, each one the

staunchest upholder of the Haqq who would never have hesitated for a

second in condemning most vociferously the slightest of deviations. Such

Ulama bore not the slightest resemblance to the so-called Ulama-e-Haqq of

today whose salient feature is cowardice and Kitmaanul Haqq (being silent

regarding the truth).

Yet not one authority who witnessed and transmitted the practice and ruling of

Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, Imam Shafii, Imam Malik, Imam Abu Hanifah, etc.

have reported anything different to what Allamah Ibn Qudamah has stated

with regards to the Amal (practice) of the Salaf-us-Saliheen. And not one

record exists of a single objection from the droves of Ulama-e-Haqq of the

Salaf-us-Saliheen and of subsequent generations regarding the Bidah

specification of a number not found in the Sunnah.

Perhaps the Salafis believe that Imam Shafii and other Imams of the Salaf-

us-Saliheen were hallucinating when they explicitly testified to having

witnessed the Salaf-us-Saliheen of Makkah, Madinah, Iraq, etc. to be praying

20 rakats? Or perhaps all the Salaf-us-Saliheen at some point in time

conspired together in all the lands to displace the Ijma practice of the

Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum) and secretly institute a Bidah, while

simultaneously managing to silence the hundreds of thousands of Ulama-e-

Haqq who would have existed during that era and in subsequent eras?

Or perhaps Taraweeh was an intensely dark, obscure and private matter that

was surreptitiously enacted in all the mosques of the Ummah, including the

Haramain (Makkah and Madinah), thus making it an extremely complex task

for the Four Imams and other Fuqaha to surgically extract the number of

rakats from the crowds of masses, including themselves, who all would have

been participating fervently in this mysterious practice for hours on end, every

evening during Ramadhan?

Perhaps when Hazrat Umar (radhiyallahu anhum) re-enacted the Taraweeh

prayers in congregation, based on the Sunnah of Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi

wasallam), and accepted by the Ijma of the Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum),

the subsequent generations of Salaf-us-Saliheen somehow lost count of the

number of rakats they had witnessed first-hand and been taught to pray, and

8 rakats transformed instantly into 20 rakats?

Or perhaps this issue serves as yet another example that exposes vividly the

massive disparity that exists between the Maslak (way) of the Salaf-us-

Saliheen and the Maslak of the Salafis, whose satanic success in this age in

displacing so widely the exact Taraweeh practice of the Salaf-us-Saliheen

demonstrates the lethal potential of the Salafi methodology to transform and

mutate the Deen of the Ummah within a matter of a few years.

THE AMAL (PRACTICE) OF THE SALAF-US-SALIHEEN OF MAKKAH,

MADINAH, IRAQ AND THE WHOLE UMMAH

Imam Shafii describes unambiguously in his famous Kitaab, al-Umm, the

specified number of rakats prayed by the Salaf-us-Saliheen of Makkah and

Madinah:

I saw [them] in Madinah standing up for prayer for 36 rakats. However, 20

rakats is more beloved to me since it was related on the authority of Umar,

and in the same manner [i.e. for 20 rakats] they [i.e. the Salaf-us-Saliheen of

his era] would stand up for prayer at Makkah and pray 3 rakats Witr.

Imam Abu Yusuf (d. 182), in his Kitab al-Athar, narrates via Imam Abu

Hanifah and Hammad (ibn Abu Sulayman) from Hazrat Ibrahim al-Nakhai (d.

96 AH), the great Tabii of Iraq the other major centre of learning to which

thousands of Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum) had migrated and which had

become the political capital of the Muslim empire during the era of the

Khulafa-e-Rashideen:

The people [i.e. the Sahabah and Tabieen] would pray 5 Tarweehaat [sets of 4

rakats] in Ramadhan.

In al-Mudawwanah, Ibn al-Qasim (d. 191 AH), the major student and primary

source of the rulings of Imam Malik, relates Imam Maliks statement in

defence of the practice of 36 rakats (20 + 16) in Madinah:

This is what I found the people to be upon, and it is the age-old practice which

the people (i.e. the Salaf-us-Saliheen) have not ceased to be upon.

Imam Tirmidhi (d. 279 AH), the student of Imam Bukhari, makes it clear

explicitly in his Sunan that the minimum base of 20 rakats was the practice of

the Salaf-us-Saliheen. The only ikhtilaaf he reports is the practice of the

people of Madinah who would pray an extra 4 rakats in each period of rest:

The Ahlul Ilm (the Ulama of the Salaf-us-Saliheen) differed over the night prayer

of Ramadan. Some were of the view that one is to pray 41 rakats [i.e. 20 rakats

+ 16 rakats Nafl + 5 witr] including Witr. This is the view of the people of

Madinah, and this is what the Amal (practice) is upon according to them in

Madinah. However, the majority of the Ahlul Ilm are upon what was reported

from Ali, Umar, and others from the Sahabah (radhiyallahu anhum) of Nabi

(sallallahu alayhi wasallam), that it is twenty Rakah. This is the view of Sufyan

Ath-Thawri, Ibn Al-Mubrak and Ash-Shafii. Ash-Shafii said: And like this I

found them [i.e. the Salaf-us-Saliheen of his era] in our land in Makkah praying

twenty Rakats. Ahmad said: There are various reports concerning this. He did

not judge according to any of them. Ishaq [ibn Rahawayh) said: Rather, we

prefer forty-one Rakah according to what has been reported from Ubayy bin

Kab. Ibn Al-Mubarak, Ahmad and Ishaq preferred that one perform the Salat

with the Imam during the month of Ramadan, while Ash-Shafii preferred that

one pray alone if he is a Qari.

Imam al-Tahawi (d. 321 AH) stated in his book, Ikhtilaf al-Ulama:

Our companions (i.e. the Imams of the Hanafi madh-hab) and Imam al-Shafii

would pray 20 rakats other than witr. Malik said [that it is] 39 rakats including

Witr 36 rakats plus Witr and he said that this was the age-old practice which

the people have not ceased to be upon, [based] on the authority of Saaib ibn

Yazeed (radhiyallahu anhu) that they would stand in Ramadan for 20 rakats,

and that they would support themselves on staffs during the time of Umar ibn al-

Khattab. Al-Hasan bin Hayy from Amr ibn Qays from Abul Husnaa [reported] that

Ali ibn Talib (radhiyallahu anhu) ordered a man to lead them in Salaat for 20

rakats in the month of Ramadhan

Abul Qasim al-Khiraqi (d. 334 AH), the long-serving student of the eldest son of

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal, states in his Mukhtasar, the earliest Hanbali Fiqh

manual which was written solely for the purpose of recording the positions of

Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal:

The standing (of prayer) in the month of Ramadhan is 20 rakats

The Taraweeh of the Salaf-us-SaliheenPART ONEA SUMMARY OF THE VIEW OF THE SALAF-US-SALIHEENAllamah Ibn Qudamahs Summary of Position of the Salaf-us-Saliheen

PART TWOA SNAPSHOT OF THE AMAL (PRACTICE) OF THE SALAF-US-SALIHEEN