his feet, and that he would spend more than half the night in worship—sometimes half of it, at other times a third. During the nights of the last ten days of Ramadan, however, he would devote the whole night to worship: breaking his fast after sunset, taking the evening meal, offering the ʿIshāʾ prayer, and engaging in whatever he ﷺ regarded as a means of drawing nearer to Allah. This does not mean that every moment was spent in formal prayer. Ṣafiyyah bint Ḥuyayy, for instance, would come to him ﷺ and he would speak with her after the ʿIshāʾ prayer. Yet everything he ﷺ occupied himself with in those nights was an act of devotion—whether actual prayer, preparation for it, or something similar.

This shows that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ enlivened each of the final ten nights of Ramadan and did not spend any other night of the year awake until dawn in the same way. He did so in search of Laylat al-Qadr, a night that falls within the last ten—especially the final seven. On that night Allah decrees what will occur during the coming year, and, as He says, “It is better than a thousand months” (Qadr 3). For that reason he ﷺ would keep the night alive, and “whoever stands in prayer on Laylat al-Qadr, with faith and seeking reward, Allah will forgive him his past sins.”

The author, may Allah have mercy on him, then addresses the meaning of “he tightened his waist-wrapper.” Some scholars hold that this is a euphemism for abstaining from marital relations, because he would be in iʿtikāf and intimacy is not permitted for one in retreat.