“…Make the last of your prayers at night an odd rakʿah of witr.” (al-Bukhārī 998)

He ﷺ also said, “People of the Quran, perform witr.” (Abū Dāwūd 1416)

The “people of the Quran” are those who regularly engage in tahajjud and the night prayer. Nevertheless, the majority position—that witr is not obligatory—remains the stronger view. All the traditions that press and urge its performance should therefore be understood as emphatic encouragement. The ḥadīth of the Miʿrāj is explicit that no prayer besides the five daily ones was made compulsory, and when the Prophet ﷺ was asked, “Is anything else required of us?” he answered, “No, unless you volunteer.”

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir Shaybah al-Ḥamd remarked that a hierarchy exists among the two rakaʿahs of Fajr, witr, and the night prayer. Concerning the night prayer, the Prophet ﷺ said, “The best prayer after the prescribed ones is the night prayer,” while regarding the two rakaʿahs before Fajr he said, “The two rakaʿahs of Fajr are better than the world and everything in it.” There is no contradiction between the two reports, for the report about the Fajr sunnah does not employ the explicit wording of “best.”