for during that time one sleeps, and sleep is the brother of death.

• Lessons derived from the ḥadīth:
  1 – “O Allah, by Your grace we enter the morning” means: through the blessing of Your creating us and sustaining us we have reached the morning; You are the Creator of both us and the morning itself.
  “And by Your grace we enter the evening” carries the same meaning.
  Al-Nawawī said: “Know that the noblest period for remembrance during the day is after the dawn prayer.”
  Ibn ʿAllān added: “This time is preferred because it is witnessed by the angels.”

2 – His words, “by Your grace we live and by Your grace we die,” indicate that every righteous deed we perform during life, and every reward that reaches us after death—acts of devotion, charity, benefaction, and enduring legacies such as transmitted knowledge, a flowing endowment, and the like—is done purely for Your sake and as a means of drawing near to You. You alone deserve such works, You guide to them, You clarify their paths, and You make their ways easy; thus our righteous deeds, whether in life or after death, are from You and return to You.

3 – “And to You is the resurrection” is said in the morning because waking from sleep resembles rising and being resurrected from the graves. Both death and sleep involve a loss of perception: the first is the greater death, while sleep is the lesser. Returning from either is a renewal of life.

4 – “And to You is the ultimate return” is said in the evening, when sleep approaches and resembles death in that the soul departs from the body and returns to its Creator—though the two departures differ. He retains the soul upon which He has decreed death, whereas the soul of the living person He releases until an appointed time.