The Imam said...

The Imam said, “That one commits a sin and say, good for me that I do not have [a sin] other than that.”270 Amir al-Mo’mineen peace be upon him, said, “the most severe sin is that that one takes lightly”.271 Imam Sadiq said, “No by Allah, Allah will not accept anything of His obedience while [one] persists on anything of His disobediences.”272 On the Night Prayer and its Virtues There is ardent emphasis on Night Prayer in the narrations reported from the ma‘s}oom imams, peace be upon them.

The Night prayer is eleven rak‘ah, eight rak‘ah are the Night prayers, two are al-shaf‘ prayer, and one rak‘ah is al-witr prayer. Every two rak‘ah is performed with one salam with the exception of the witr which is one rak‘ah, with one salam. The time of the night prayer is between midnight and the break of Fajr. 268 Nahj al-Balaghah, p549, hadith #417 269 Wasa>’el al-Shi‘ah, vol.15, p303, Thawa>b al-‘Ama>l, by al-S{adooq, p242.

270 Wasa’el al-Shi‘ah, vol.15, p310 271 Nahj al-Balaghah, p 559, hadith #477 272 Al-Kafi, vol.2, p288, Wasa>’el al-Shi‘ah, vol.15, p337 It is recommended that in each of the two rak‘ah of the first prayer the surah of Tawh}eed is recited thirty times [after al-H{amd], and in the rest of the two rak‘ah prayers, the long surahs are recited such as the Cattle (#6), the Cave (#18), the Prophets (#21), if there is enough time.

It is recommended to recite the long surah in the first rak‘ah and a short in the second [in the latter three prayers]. It is recommended to recite [the surahs of] al-Falaq, al-Na>s, and al-Tawh}eed in the al-shaf‘ and al-witr273. Otherwise one may read al-Tawh}eed in all274.

In the Qunut of al-witr prayer one should pray for forty believers, saying Alla>humma ighfir le ‘so & so’, and instead of ‘so & so’ the name of the individual should be mentioned, [and if one wished to pray for a minor, s/he] should not be counted amongst the forty275. [after that] it is recommended in the Qunut to say istighfa>r seventy times, better still to say it one hundred times. During the saying of the istighfa>r one may keep one’s left hand raised and keep count with the right hand.

This istighfa>r is recommended to be as follows: Astaghfirullaha min jamee‘a dulmi wa jurmi wa israfi fi amri wa atoobo ilayh. However, it would be sufficient to say Astaghfirulla>ha wa atoobo ilayh. It is recommended to say seven times ha>dha> maqa>m-ul-‘a>’edhi bika min an-nar.