or the five, the seven, the nine, or the eleven, the term witr then refers only to that solitary rakʿah which is offered on its own.
The Prophet ﷺ said, “When you fear that dawn is near, perform witr with a single rakʿah; it will make everything you have already prayed an odd number.” (al-Bukhārī 998)
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The ḥadīth of Abū Ayyūb indicates that witr is obligatory and that it may be performed as five, three, or a single rakʿah.
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Whoever wishes to offer witr as five may do so, and whoever wishes to offer it as three may do so; that is, he should not sit for the tashahhud except in the very last rakʿah.
Disagreement among the scholars
The majority of scholars from the Companions and the Successors—including the three Imams, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad—hold that witr is not obligatory. They cite the ḥadīth of the Bedouin who asked the Prophet ﷺ about what Allah had made obligatory upon him. He replied, “Five prayers in every day and night.” The man asked, “Is anything else required of me?” He said, “No, unless you volunteer.” (al-Bukhārī 46; Muslim 11)
Abū Ḥanīfah, together with a group of Ḥanbalī scholars, considered it obligatory, relying on the ḥadīth, “Witr is a duty upon every Muslim” (Abū Dāwūd 1422), and on the report of Buraydah in Abū Dāwūd 1419 that the Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever does not observe witr is not one of us.”
The position of the majority is weightier: witr is a highly-emphasised sunnah, not an obligation. They interpret the ḥadīth “Witr is a duty” as emphatic encouragement. ʿAlī (may Allah be pleased with him) said, “Witr is not an inescapable duty like the prescribed prayers; rather, it is a sunnah instituted by the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.”
Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah said, “The best prayer after the obligatory ones is the night vigil; the most strongly stressed parts of it are witr and the two rakʿahs of dawn. No one should omit them; whoever does, his testimony is rejected.” He also said, “Witr is superior to all other supererogatory prayers.”
The Shaykh preferred the opinion that witr is obligatory for anyone who keeps a regular portion of night prayer, citing as evidence his statement