before the break of dawn. Accordingly, whoever holds that the word “day” applies only to the daylight hours and that the word “night” applies only to the hours of darkness makes a distinction between vowing for certain “days” and vowing for certain “nights.”

In fact, in Arabic usage the term yawm (day) may be used for the daylight period alone, and it may also be used for both night and day together. Its primary signification, however, appears to be the daytime, while its inclusion of the night is only by necessary implication.

The textual evidence that overrides all such analogies is the report recorded by al-Bukhārī and other compilers of sound ḥadīth, on the authority of ʿĀʾishah: “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—used to perform iʿtikāf in Ramadan, and once he had prayed the Dawn Prayer he would enter the place in which he was to observe his retreat.”

With regard to the time of departure, Mālik was of the opinion that the devotee who has spent the last ten nights of Ramadan in retreat should remain in the mosque until the ʿĪd Prayer as a recommended practice, yet that if he left after sunset his iʿtikāf would still be valid. Al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Ḥanīfah, by contrast, maintained that he should leave immediately after sunset, whereas Sahnūn and Ibn al-Mājishūn ruled that if he returns to his house before the ʿĪd Prayer his retreat is nullified. The crux of their disagreement is whether the remaining night is deemed part of the ten or not.

The conditions for a valid iʿtikāf are three: intention, fasting, and abstaining from conjugal contact.

As for intention, I know of no difference of opinion.

With respect to fasting, the jurists have disagreed. Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and a group of others hold that there is no iʿtikāf without fasting. Al-Shāfiʿī, however, holds that iʿtikāf is permissible without fasting. Supporting Mālik’s position are reports from the Companions Ibn ʿUmar and Ibn ʿAbbās—though another narration from them differs—while supporting al-Shāfiʿī’s view are ʿAlī and Ibn Masʿūd.

The source of their disagreement is that the Prophet’s iʿtikāf—peace and blessings be upon him—took place only in Ramadan. Those who regard the fasting that accompanied his retreat as a requisite for iʿtikāf, even if the fast was not performed specifically for the retreat, affirm that fasting must be joined to iʿtikāf. Those who see the concurrence of fasting and retreat as merely incidental, and not something deliberately stipulated by him—peace be upon him—hold that fasting is not a condition.

There is yet another argument: iʿtikāf is mentioned together with fasting in a single Qurʾānic verse.

Al-Shāfiʿī cites in evidence the ḥadīth of ʿUmar mentioned earlier, in which the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—commanded him to observe a retreat for one night, and the night is not a time for fasting. The Mālikīs, on the other hand, adduce the report transmitted by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Isḥāq, from ʿUrwah, from ʿĀʾishah, in which she said, “The Sunnah …”