Taraaweeh why 20 and not 8 We should understand that when it came to personal worship the beloved prophet of Allah would exert himself excessively praying throughout most of the night to the extent as reported in hadeeth " that his feet would swell" but when it was congregational prayer he himself would lead prayers briefly and commanded others to do the same. Same thing with Hadeeth. The prophet s.a.w rarely gave a long sermon. The ONLY opportunity he had in his entire life to address a very large gathering in the plain of Arafa , his sermon referred to as the farewell sermon is about a page at most. Majority of his advices are a few sentences at most. The prophet S.a.w passed away in the month of Rabi ul Awwal which was in june that year. Ramadhaan was five months earlier i.e in January when the nights are longest and the days shortest even in Saudi Arabia. In January maghrib is around 6.0pm , Isha begins around 7.30 and fajar begins around 6.0am in Madinah. It is mentioned in hadeeth about the three nights the prophet s.a.w lead the people in prayer that on the third night specially the prayer was so long that the sahaabah feared they were going to miss suhoor-( sehri ). That means that the prophet s.a.w lead the people in prayer from around 8.0pm to about 3.0-4.0am....i.e 7-8 hours.If the prophet s.a.w prayed only 8 rakaats that means each rakaat was almost an hour long with the masjid fully packed with young and elderly.....the prophet s.a.w had never done that in congregation. So the prophet s.a.w must have prayed shorter rakaats but more in number...this is why sahaabah established the practice of praying 20 rakaats taraweeh with 3 witr throughout the khilaafah of Umar r.a , Uthmaan r.a and Ali r.a and no one objected because that is what they had prayed with the prophet s.a.w as reported by many muhaddithoon i.e 20 rakaats of taraweeh and 3 witr and also as acknowledged by even Ibne Taimiyah r.h.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:33:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015