The excellence of worship of the night

The believers are permitted to perform supererogatory (Nafl) worship of Allah Most High in any part of the day and night without any reservations.  However, in light of the Holy Quran and the Sunnah, the worship of the night has been deemed more excellent than the worship of the day.  Due to various reasons the worship of the night carries much more excellence than worship of the day.

 

1.  The Holy Quran was revealed in the night, i.e. in the Night of Qadr.

 

2.  Special mercy of Almighty Allah descends from the first heavens upon His slaves in the last part of the night.

 

3.  At night, there is a general declaration of forgiveness for believers.

 

4.  The heavenly ascension (M’eraj) of the Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) in which He saw the Lord Almighty Himself in all His sublime glory, occurred in night.

 

5.  The night is the best time for worship of Allah Most High as others are sleeping and this is the ideal time for the sincere slaves of Allah to present themselves before their Lord Almighty and there is not even a trace of showing off or the like in this.

 

6.  The affairs of the world are stopped at night.  Noise and bustle is non-existent then and there is peace and calm everywhere.  All this helps in concentration and devotion in worship.

 

The scholars have detailed these and such reasons which establish that the worship performed in the night has a special excellence.

 

Hadhrat ‘Allama Ibn Hajar Haitami (May Allah shower His mercy on him) describes the excellence of the day and night and then writes about the excellence of night over day:

 

Translation: Other scholars have declared night to be superior to the day as the entity which has been declared greater than 1000 months (The Night of Qadr) is night itself.  For us, no day has been decreed to be better than 1000 months.  The scholars have qualified that if a man tells his wife that she is divorced in the most excellent time, then the wife will be divorced in Night of Qadr only.  The special radiance of Allah’s mercy is expressed in the night only and the heavenly journey of M’eraj also occurred in the night and Allah knows best.  (Al Fatawa Al Hadeethiya, Vol. 26)

 

The Hadith mention many details about the excellence of spending the night in prayer.  The Holy Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) has encouraged and exhorted His Ummah to spend the night in worship.