it counts as charity.’ Every good deed is charity: reciting the Qur’an is charity, seeking knowledge is charity. In this way the avenues of charity multiply, and a person is able to render the three-hundred-and-sixty acts of charity that are due from him each day.

He then said, ‘And it suffices for all of that if one performs two rakʿahs of the ḍuḥā (mid-morning) prayer.’ That is, if you pray two units during the forenoon they discharge every charity that you owe; this is part of Allah’s gracious facilitation for His servants.

The ḥadith therefore shows that the term ṣadaqah (charity) applies to deeds that involve no money. It likewise indicates that the two rakʿahs of ḍuḥā are an established sunnah to be observed daily, for each day a charity is owed on behalf of every joint, and those two rakʿahs make up for them all. Hence the ḍuḥā prayer is a daily sunnah by which one settles those charities.

The scholars state that the time for the ḍuḥā sunnah begins when the sun has risen a spear’s length—roughly fifteen to twenty minutes after sunrise—and lasts until shortly before the zenith, about ten minutes before noon. Any moment within that span is a valid time to offer the two rakʿahs of ḍuḥā, though it is preferable to pray them toward the end of the period, because the Prophet