and one night he went out and found the people praying, whereupon he said, “What an excellent innovation this is!” (1) This indicates that it had not previously been legislated. On this basis, it would be one of Umar’s practices, not one of the Prophet’s ﷺ sunnahs. One might then object, saying: It is not a sunnah, because its cause existed during the Messenger’s ﷺ lifetime, yet he did not do it. The principle is that whatever had its cause present in the Prophet’s ﷺ time, but which he did not do, is not a sunnah. For how could the Messenger leave it undone when its cause was present? The cause in this case was Ramadan, which existed in the Messenger’s ﷺ time. Since he did not do it, it was not a sunnah. Accordingly, once you have prayed the obligatory prayer in Ramadan, go home and pray; do not pray with the people.

However, this is a weak view. Its proponent has overlooked what is established in al-Sahihayn and elsewhere: that the Prophet ﷺ led his Companions in prayer for three nights, but on the third or fourth night he stayed behind and did not pray. He said: “I feared that it would be made obligatory upon you.” (2) Thus, Tarawih was established by the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ mentioned the impediment to continuing it, not an impediment to its legitimacy: namely, the fear that it would be made obligatory. This fear ceased with the death of the Messenger ﷺ, for when he died, revelation came to an end, and there was no longer any fear that it would be made obligatory. Once the operative cause—the fear of its being made obligatory—ceased with the end of revelation, the resulting ruling likewise ceased. At that point, its status as a prophetic sunnah returned.

The question then remains: why did Abu Bakr not do this?

The answer is that Abu Bakr’s caliphate lasted two years and some months, and he was occupied with preparing armies to fight