al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah be pleased with him—is false. The imams prayed it only after ʿIshāʾ during the time of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and his Rightly Guided Caliphs. This has also been the practice of the imams of the Muslims; none is known to have deliberately performed it before ʿIshāʾ. This prayer is called the Ramadan night prayer, as the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—said:

“Allah has made fasting Ramadan obligatory upon you, and I have established its night prayer as a sunnah for you. Whoever fasts it and performs its night prayer will have his previous sins forgiven.”

Night prayer, whether in Ramadan or at other times, is performed only after ʿIshāʾ. The Sunan collections explicitly state:

“When he led them in the Ramadan night prayer, he prayed after ʿIshāʾ.”

The night prayer of the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was his witr prayer. In Ramadan and at other times, he would pray eleven or thirteen rakʿahs at night, but he made them lengthy. Since this was difficult for people, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb led them in twenty rakʿahs during the time of ʿUmar ibn al-Khattāb, shortening the standing in them and praying witr afterwards. Increasing the number thus compensated for the length of the standing. Some of the early generations prayed forty rakʿahs with shorter periods of standing, followed by three rakʿahs of witr. Others prayed thirty-six rakʿahs, followed by witr. Their established practice was to perform their night prayer after ʿIshāʾ.

However, the Rāfidah dislike the tarāwīh prayer. If they perform it before ʿIshāʾ, it is not the tarāwīh prayer, just as, when they perform ablution, they wash