his life, and this shows that Riyāḍ al-Ṣāliḥīn is a broad, comprehensive work that every Muslim should own, read, and understand. For that reason the author (may Allah have mercy on him) included the etiquettes of sleep. Sleep is one of Allah’s signs that testify to His perfect power and wisdom, as He, the Exalted, says: “And among His signs is your sleep by night and by day and your seeking of His bounty” (30:23). It is a blessing from Allah to His servant, for through it he rests from previous toil and is invigorated for forthcoming work. Thus it benefits a person with respect to what has passed and what lies ahead. Sleep forms part of the completeness of worldly life, for this world is deficient and is perfected by sleep as a means of rest—yet, from another perspective, it is a deficiency when set against al-Qayyūm, Allah, for He says: “Neither drowsiness overtakes Him nor sleep” (2:255). Because His life is perfect, He needs neither sleep nor anything else; He is the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy. Man, however, in this worldly life is an imperfect creature in need of completion. Sleep, in reality, is that Allah seizes the soul while one is asleep, though it is not the complete seizure that entails total separation; hence you find the person alive yet, in a sense, dead—he is unaware of what surrounds him: he hears no speech, sees no one, and smells no fragrance, but