Advice of Scholars - TARÂWÎH NAMÂZ

It is written in the book Nûr-ul-izâh and in its explanation: “It is sunnat-i muakkada for men and women to perform the tarâwîh, which consists of twenty rak’ats. A person who disbelieves this is a heretic and his testimony is not to be accepted. Rasûlullah (sallallâhu alaihi wa sallam) performed eight rak’ats of the tarâwîh in jamâ’at for several nights. [Thereafter he would go home and complete the set of twenty rak’ats]. It has also been reported by savants that when alone he performed twenty rak’ats of tarâwîh. [It consists of twenty rak’ats in all the four Madhhabs].

The tarâwîh is performed after the last sunnat of night prayer and before the witr. It is sunnat-i kifâya to perform the tarâwîh in jamâ’at. That is, when it is performed in jamâ’at 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 jamâ’at in the mosque. ] If they perform it in jamâ’at 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 tarâwîh, they stand up for the following rak’at after making the salâm at the end of every two rak’ats. Or they can give the salâm at the end of every four rak’ats. They sit for a period equaling the time it takes to perform four rak’ats between every four rak’ats and they should recite the salawât or the tasbîhât or the Qur’ân-i kerîm. Or they can sit silently. It is better to make the salâm after every two rak’ats and to make the niyyat (intention) before each takbîr of iftitâh (beginning). Those who did not perform the night prayer in jamâ’at cannot perform the tarâwîh in jamâ’at. For the jamâ’at performing the tarâwîh have to be the same jamâ’at performing the fard. A person who did not perform the night prayer in jamâ’at can perform the fard alone and then join the jamâ’at who are performing the tarâwîh.