How to Perform Night Prayer

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Night Prayer (Arabic: صلاة اللّیل) is the most important recommended prayer with 11 rak'as. The period of time in which it should be performed is after the midnight until break of dawn. According to the Qur'an 17:79, "as for the night there is a voluntary deed for you to keep vigil in part it", performing the night prayer is obligatory for the Prophet Muhammad (s) and is recommended for the rest of believers. Many hadiths have emphasized its importance, taking it to be an honor for believers, expiation for one's sins committed during the day, preventing the horrors of the grave, and guaranteeing one's livelihood. It is recommended in hadiths that its qada' be performed if its valid time is passed.

It is not obligatory to say all its 11 rak'as. One may as well say fewer than that, in which case it is more rewarding to say its last three rak'as (that is, two rak'as of shaf' prayer and one rak'a of watr prayer).

In the Qur'an

According to the Qur'an 17:79, the night prayer is obligatory for the Prophet (s) as a means for him to reach the praised position (al-maqam al-mahmud). Although the word "tahajjud" (vigilance), which means saying prayers and worships at night, has occurred in the Qur'an only once, there are many other verses of the Qur'an that explicitly talk about vigilance and asking for God's forgiveness at nights and in the dawn. Asking for God's mercy and forgiveness in the dawn is considered in those verses to be a character of the pious people, and vigilance is taken to be a habit of true believers in God. The divine rewards for the night prayer and vigilance is so great that it is taken to be incalculable with human measures.

According to the Qur'an 73:2 (rise [to pray] the night except a little), the Prophet (s) and all the believers are called to rise at nights to pray.

In Hadiths

Many hadiths have emphasized the importance of the night prayer. In his will to Imam 'Ali (a), the Prophet (s) emphasized the importance of the night prayer three times. And in a different saying, the Prophet (s) addressed all Muslims by: "I recommend you to say the night prayer, even one rak'a, since it prevents one from committing sins, quenches God's anger and extinguishes the fire on the Dooms Day".

It is so important that it is recommended to perform its qada' if one fails to perform it in its valid time and the person who fails to perform it is considered as a loser. It is recommended that the night prayer be performed even when one is tired or on a travel. Some hadiths from Sunni sources imply that the night prayer used to be obligatory in the early days of Islam, but it became recommended later.

According to the words of the Infallibles (a), committing sins and overeating cause one to lose his or her occasion to say the night prayers.