- Rāfiʿ ibn Khadīj (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: “We used to perform the Maghrib prayer with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and one of us would leave and still be able to see where his arrow had landed.” Agreed upon (1).
Glossary of the ḥadith
• liyubṣira – with a ḍamma on the yāʾ, from the verb “to see”; the prefixed lām is for emphasis.
• mawāqiʿ – plural of mawqiʿ, meaning the place where something comes to rest.
• nabluh – with a fatḥa on the nūn and a sukūn on the bāʾ; the Arabic arrows. It is grammatically feminine; its plurals are nibāl and anbāl, and it has no singular of the same form.
Points derived from the ḥadith
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It is recommended to hasten the Maghrib prayer at the very beginning of its time so that one leaves while daylight still remains. Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn stated that this recommendation is unanimously accepted by the jurists.
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“Sunset” refers to the complete disappearance of the sun’s disc so that none of it remains visible. Consensus has been transmitted on this, as indicated by al-Bukhārī (536) and Muslim (636) in the report of Salamah ibn al-Akwaʿ: “The Prophet ﷺ would pray Maghrib when the sun had set and vanished from sight.”
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The time for Maghrib extends until the disappearance of the red twilight. This is the position of the three Imams: Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad.
Al-Nawawī said: “This is the correct view from which no other is permissible,” citing Muslim (612) and others from the narration of Ibn ʿAmr, who related that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The time for Maghrib…"