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 THE NAMAZ OF TARAWIHIt is written in the book Nur-ul-izah and in its explanation: "It is sunnat-i muakkada for men and women to perform the tarawih, which consists of twenty rakats. A person who disbelieves this is a heretic and his testimony is not to be accepted. Rasulullah (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) performed eight rakats of the tarawih in jamaat for several nights. [Thereafter he would go home and complete the set of twenty rakats]. It has also been reported by savants that when alone he performed twenty rakats of tarawih. [It consists of twenty rakats in all the four Madhhabs]. Hence, it has been understood that it is a sunnat. The three Khalifas and all the Sahaba of that time performed twenty rakats of the tarawih in jamaat. And a hadith commands us to adapt ourselves to those Khalifas and to the ijma' (unanimity) of the Sahaba."The tarawih is performed after the last sunnat of night prayer and before the witr. [A person cannot perform the tarawih before performing the night prayer. (Ibni Abidin, p. 295) Yet it can be performed after the witr. It can be performed any time until morning prayer. It cannot be performed after the dawn has broken. It cannot be performed as a qada prayer, either. (That is, it cannot be performed later at some other time.) For the tarawih is a strong sunnat, but not as strong as the last sunnats of the evening and night prayers. And those sunnats, despite their value, are not performed as qada. Qada is necessary only for those prayers of namaz that are fard and for the witr. [The tarawih is performed as a qada prayer in the Shafi'i Madhhab.] It is sunnat-i kifaya to perform the tarawih in jamaat. That is, when it is performed in jamaat in a mosque, others may perform it alone in their homes, which is not sinful. But in this case they will be deprived of the blessings of jamaat in the mosque.] If they perform it in jamaat with one or more people in their homes, they will earn twenty- seven times the blessings they would attain if they performed it alone. To perform tarawih, they stand up for the following rakat after making the salam at the end of every two rakats. Or they can give the salam at the end of every four rakats. They sit for a period equaling the time it takes to perform four rakats between every four rakats and they should recite the salawat or the tasbihat or the Qur'an al-karim. Or they can sit silently. It is better to make the salam after every two rakats and to make the niyyat (intention) before each takbir of iftitah (beginning). Those who did not perform the night prayer in jamaat cannot perform the tarawih in jamaat. For the jamaat performing the tarawih have to be the same jamaat performing the fard. A person who did not perform the night prayer in jamaat can perform the fard alone and then join the jamaat who are performing the tarawih. [See the twenty- third chapter].
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