Our jurists, may Allah have mercy on them, state in the more extensive works: if he does not arrive at Muzdalifah by sunset (1)—that is, if the time of sunset does not come upon him there—then, if he arrives there at that time, he prays it within its time and hastens to do so.

If someone were to ask: “What if I am delayed on the road and fear that the time for the night prayer will end—what should I do?”

The answer is: if he fears that its time will expire, he must dismount and pray. If he is unable to dismount, he should pray, even while on the back of his mount.

in a state of ihram. The time for the night prayer then follows, lasting until the second dawn, which is the horizontal whiteness . . .

His statement, “The time for the night prayer then follows, lasting until the second dawn, which is the horizontal whiteness.”

That is, the time for the night prayer follows the time for the sunset prayer. According to the author’s wording, it extends until the rising of the second dawn, which is the horizontal whiteness. Accordingly, the night prayer has the longest time span of all the prayers, for it begins when the time for the sunset prayer ends and lasts until the second dawn rises.

The author explained the second dawn by saying, “It is the horizontal whiteness” on the horizon—that is, extending from north to south.

By his statement, “until the rising of the second dawn,” the author, may Allah have mercy on him, indicates that there is also a first dawn; and this is indeed the case. The first dawn appears before the second by approximately an hour, or forty-five minutes, or something close to that.

The scholars have mentioned three differences between it and the second dawn (2):