Importance of
Tahajjud
By Rakhim Choudhury
Rakhim Choudhury is 15 years
old, and studies in year 10 at
Repton School Dubai.
T
ahajjud (is a
superogatory prayer,
performed in the
last one third of the
night) is a nafl (superogatory)
prayer which brings great rewards
and closeness to Allah . It was
mandatory upon the Prophet
and he urged his Sahabah
to pray it, but since then only
those who want to become close
to Allah sacrifice sleep to
perform this supplication. It’s
a shame that I have to say ‘only
those’, as we should all want to be
close to our Rabb (God), but it
is saddening that today very few
people perform tahajjud.
The Prophet Muhammad
never missed this prayer, so why
should we? Is he not our ideal
role model? Should we not try
and copy every aspect of his
life as best as we can? If so, why
should we leave out tahajjud? The
Prophet would only sleep one
third of the night, and spend the
rest in supplication. He would
sleep for a few hours after Isha
prayer(the evening prayer),then
rise and perform at least eight
rakats of tahajjud. These rakats
would be so long that merely one
sajdah (prostration) would be
long enough for one to read fifty
verses of the holy Quran. Yet we
cannot even wake up for Fajr (the
dawn prayer) on time.
I am not saying that you should
starve yourself of sleep, but we
could all make the effort to wake
up fifteen or twenty minutes
before the fajr adhaan (the call for
prayer) to at least pray four rakats
(units)of tahajjud. Any person
who wants to be close to Allah
will pray it, and we should feel the
same way about tahajjud, as we do
about our obligatory prayers.
The time before fajr is also when
Allah the Almighty descends
to the lowest heaven to hear the
59 NISBAH