Tirmidhi

1؎ And this is also the opinion of the majority of scholars, and the interpretation (ta’wil) of the aforementioned narration of Umm al-Mu’minin A’ishah radi Allahu anha is as follows: Its meaning is not that you (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) would begin i’tikaf (spiritual retreat) after the dawn (fajr) of the twenty-first (day), but rather, for i’tikaf, you would spend the day of the twentieth, and before sunset you would arrive at the mosque, and with the intention of i’tikaf, you would spend the night in the mosque itself. Then, after performing the dawn prayer (fajr), you would proceed to the specific place of i’tikaf that had been prepared for you. This interpretation is necessary because other narrations establish that you (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam) would perform i’tikaf for the entire last ten days of Ramadan, and if it is taken to mean that you entered the place of i’tikaf after the dawn of the twenty-first, then the ten days would not be complete and there would be a deficiency in them.