This excerpt is taken from the book Proof of Twenty Rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ in the Mirror of Reality, authored by Shaykh Riḍā’ullāh ʿAbdul-Karīm Madanī, which is a response to the treatise of Muftī Shabbīr Aḥmad Qāsmī.
الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيد الأولين والآخرين، وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين، أما بعد:
All praise is for Allah, Lord of the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the leader of the first and the last, and upon his family, all his Companions, and those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment. To proceed:
The issue has two aspects:
① How many rak‘ahs did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ pray during his lifetime—eight or eleven?
② How many rak‘ahs did Sayyidunā ʿUmar al-Fārūq رضي الله عنه command—eight or twenty?
If these two points are clarified, the entire matter becomes completely clear.
However, our well-wishing taqlīd-oriented brethren, especially those associated with the Deobandī school, instead of resolving the issue, continue to complicate it. They fear that if the true reality becomes clear, then what will happen to their system of spiritual allegiance (pīrī-murīdī), and that public confidence in jurisprudence might be shaken. For this reason, they have developed a habit of mixing issues and making baseless and unfounded claims, which they repeatedly demonstrate.
At present, I have before me an eight-page booklet written by non–Ahl al-Ḥadīth Muftī Shabbīr Aḥmad Qāsmī. The entire booklet is a collection of misconceptions. Despite admitting that there is no authentic, explicit, marfūʿ, and connected ḥadīth proving twenty rak‘ahs, the author attempts to establish twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ through new forms of misrepresentation.
Below, we will examine this attempt of his and see the true nature of his claims.
Instead of resolving the issue, Muftī Qāsmī has further complicated it. Ideally, he should have first clarified the actual reality of the issue, then explained the reason for disagreement, then stated his own claim, and after that presented his evidence—so that the reader could fully understand the core issue, the cause of disagreement, and the correct way out, thereby escaping the confusion in which he is trapped.
However, instead of doing so, he began discussing the four foundational principles, explaining them entirely according to his own desires. Under the heading of the authority of Qiyās, whatever he has written reflects his intellectual confusion. In this eight-page booklet, he has devoted two full pages merely to baseless claims without evidence.
In the very first line of the booklet, he states:
For a Muftī to state that there are only three established principles, and then to invent his own explanation of Qiyās under the heading of its authority, clearly reflects his intellectual confusion. Had he even consulted the standard Ḥanafī textbook of jurisprudence, Nūr al-Anwār, he might not have made such incoherent statements.
Muftī Ṣāḥib has restricted Ijmaʿ only to the Ijmaʿ of the Companions, as is evident from the sixth line of his booklet where he explicitly titles it Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah. This indicates that he does not consider the consensus of later Mujtahid scholars to be Ijmaʿ. This may not concern us, but whether this attempt at reforming Ḥanafī jurisprudence will be appreciated by Deobandī scholars or not is something for them to reflect upon.
The ḥadīth he presents as evidence for Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah does not even correspond to his claim. His claim is Ijmaʿ of the Companions, while the evidence merely mentions adherence to the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. If the agreement of the Rightly Guided Caliphs is considered Ijmaʿ, then such agreement was only possible during the era of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq رضي الله عنه. After his passing, the agreement of all four Caliphs was no longer possible. Thus, by this logic, Ijmaʿ could not exist after him.
Dear Readers!
Many such questions can be raised, but for now we will leave them aside and clarify that this ḥadīth has no connection whatsoever with the issue of Ijmaʿ, and no scholar of principles has ever used it as proof for the authority of Ijmaʿ.
If we become Muftīs and issue verdicts,
Then all problems will be resolved.
The ḥadīth attributed to Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, which Muftī Ṣāḥib presents as evidence for Qiyās, has convinced us that he does not understand Qiyās or its four foundational components at all. Perhaps he assumed that this booklet would remain limited to his followers, and that no person of knowledge would examine it. And his followers, driven by sectarian bias, would anyway chant slogans in his favor.
My advice to Muftī Ṣāḥib is that in his hostility toward Ahl al-Ḥadīth, he should not expose his lack of knowledge by writing absurd statements.
By separating Ahl al-Ḥadīth from Ahl al-Sunnah, he has in fact slapped his own elders in the face. This is not our disgrace, but rather the disgrace of his own seniors. Ahl al-Ḥadīth neither needed nor need today a certificate from any blind follower to prove that they are Ahl al-Sunnah. Ahl al-Ḥadīth know that the true Ahl al-Sunnah are those who follow the Sunnah in all circumstances. Can those who consider blind following of an Imām obligatory, and abandon thousands of Sunnahs by saying, “Our Imām’s opinion is contrary to this, so we will not act upon it,” truly be called Ahl al-Sunnah?
Examine the principle of al-Karkhī and observe the conduct of present-day blind followers.
Muftī Qāsmī has not made one, nor two, nor three, nor four—rather nine claims, and astonishingly, not a single one of them is supported by evidence.
He writes:
① With authentic chains, it is found in the books of ḥadīth that the practice of twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ began during the caliphate of ʿUmar رضي الله عنه.
② All the Companions unanimously agreed upon this practice, and none objected to it.
③ This is called Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah.
④ From the time of ʿUmar رضي الله عنه, the practice of twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ remained continuously established among the majority of the Ummah.
⑤ Throughout the entire era of ʿUthmān رضي الله عنه.
⑥ Then during the era of ʿAlī رضي الله عنه.
⑦ Then throughout the entire era of the Companions.
⑧ During the times of the Tābiʿīn, Tabaʿ Tābiʿīn, and the Mujtahid Imāms, it always continued.
⑨ The ruling of Tarāwīḥ is definitively established through the third principle of Sharīʿah: Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah.
Dear Readers!
These are the nine claims of Muftī Qāsmī—none of which he has supported with any evidence. Perhaps he considers his own statements to be authoritative.
You might say that he has provided the evidence of consensus of the Companions on twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ. Let us examine that first, and then we will analyze these claims and expose their reality.
This narration is not suitable for evidence in any way, and it is the only narration in which twenty rak‘ahs are attributed to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Otherwise, in all authentic narrations, no more than eight rak‘ahs are established from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—a fact which even Ḥanafī scholars themselves admit, as will be shown later.
Muftī Qāsmī himself admits that this narration is not an independent proof, because it is weak, disputed, and the scholars of ḥadīth are unanimous regarding its weakness. Moreover, it contradicts authentic aḥādīth. Therefore, it neither constitutes proof on its own nor can it support any other evidence.
الحمد لله رب العالمين، والصلاة والسلام على سيد الأولين والآخرين، وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين ومن تبعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين، أما بعد:
All praise is for Allah, Lord of the worlds. May peace and blessings be upon the leader of the first and the last, and upon his family, all his Companions, and those who follow them with excellence until the Day of Judgment. To proceed:
The Actual Number of Rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ
The issue of how many rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ are authentically established from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ has been a subject of debate in India for a long time, despite the fact that the matter is so clear that there is no room for such prolonged discussion. However, a few sectarian-minded scholars have found comfort in keeping this issue entangled.The issue has two aspects:
① How many rak‘ahs did the Messenger of Allah ﷺ pray during his lifetime—eight or eleven?
② How many rak‘ahs did Sayyidunā ʿUmar al-Fārūq رضي الله عنه command—eight or twenty?
If these two points are clarified, the entire matter becomes completely clear.
However, our well-wishing taqlīd-oriented brethren, especially those associated with the Deobandī school, instead of resolving the issue, continue to complicate it. They fear that if the true reality becomes clear, then what will happen to their system of spiritual allegiance (pīrī-murīdī), and that public confidence in jurisprudence might be shaken. For this reason, they have developed a habit of mixing issues and making baseless and unfounded claims, which they repeatedly demonstrate.
At present, I have before me an eight-page booklet written by non–Ahl al-Ḥadīth Muftī Shabbīr Aḥmad Qāsmī. The entire booklet is a collection of misconceptions. Despite admitting that there is no authentic, explicit, marfūʿ, and connected ḥadīth proving twenty rak‘ahs, the author attempts to establish twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ through new forms of misrepresentation.
Below, we will examine this attempt of his and see the true nature of his claims.
Muftī Qāsmī and His Booklet
Dear Readers!Instead of resolving the issue, Muftī Qāsmī has further complicated it. Ideally, he should have first clarified the actual reality of the issue, then explained the reason for disagreement, then stated his own claim, and after that presented his evidence—so that the reader could fully understand the core issue, the cause of disagreement, and the correct way out, thereby escaping the confusion in which he is trapped.
However, instead of doing so, he began discussing the four foundational principles, explaining them entirely according to his own desires. Under the heading of the authority of Qiyās, whatever he has written reflects his intellectual confusion. In this eight-page booklet, he has devoted two full pages merely to baseless claims without evidence.
In the very first line of the booklet, he states:
Whereas the established principles of Sharīʿah are four, two of which are primary sources, and the remaining two are derived from them.“There are three established principles of Sharīʿah.”
For a Muftī to state that there are only three established principles, and then to invent his own explanation of Qiyās under the heading of its authority, clearly reflects his intellectual confusion. Had he even consulted the standard Ḥanafī textbook of jurisprudence, Nūr al-Anwār, he might not have made such incoherent statements.
Muftī Ṣāḥib has restricted Ijmaʿ only to the Ijmaʿ of the Companions, as is evident from the sixth line of his booklet where he explicitly titles it Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah. This indicates that he does not consider the consensus of later Mujtahid scholars to be Ijmaʿ. This may not concern us, but whether this attempt at reforming Ḥanafī jurisprudence will be appreciated by Deobandī scholars or not is something for them to reflect upon.
The ḥadīth he presents as evidence for Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah does not even correspond to his claim. His claim is Ijmaʿ of the Companions, while the evidence merely mentions adherence to the Sunnah of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. If the agreement of the Rightly Guided Caliphs is considered Ijmaʿ, then such agreement was only possible during the era of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq رضي الله عنه. After his passing, the agreement of all four Caliphs was no longer possible. Thus, by this logic, Ijmaʿ could not exist after him.
Dear Readers!
Many such questions can be raised, but for now we will leave them aside and clarify that this ḥadīth has no connection whatsoever with the issue of Ijmaʿ, and no scholar of principles has ever used it as proof for the authority of Ijmaʿ.
The Authority of Qiyās
Whatever Muftī Qāsmī has written under this heading—if, according to Deobandī scholars, this represents the explanation of the authority of Qiyās—then congratulations to them. As for us, this is all we can say.If we become Muftīs and issue verdicts,
Then all problems will be resolved.
The ḥadīth attributed to Sayyidunā ʿAlī رضي الله عنه, which Muftī Ṣāḥib presents as evidence for Qiyās, has convinced us that he does not understand Qiyās or its four foundational components at all. Perhaps he assumed that this booklet would remain limited to his followers, and that no person of knowledge would examine it. And his followers, driven by sectarian bias, would anyway chant slogans in his favor.
My advice to Muftī Ṣāḥib is that in his hostility toward Ahl al-Ḥadīth, he should not expose his lack of knowledge by writing absurd statements.
By separating Ahl al-Ḥadīth from Ahl al-Sunnah, he has in fact slapped his own elders in the face. This is not our disgrace, but rather the disgrace of his own seniors. Ahl al-Ḥadīth neither needed nor need today a certificate from any blind follower to prove that they are Ahl al-Sunnah. Ahl al-Ḥadīth know that the true Ahl al-Sunnah are those who follow the Sunnah in all circumstances. Can those who consider blind following of an Imām obligatory, and abandon thousands of Sunnahs by saying, “Our Imām’s opinion is contrary to this, so we will not act upon it,” truly be called Ahl al-Sunnah?
Examine the principle of al-Karkhī and observe the conduct of present-day blind followers.
Muftī Qāsmī’s Baseless Claims
Respected Readers!Muftī Qāsmī has not made one, nor two, nor three, nor four—rather nine claims, and astonishingly, not a single one of them is supported by evidence.
He writes:
① With authentic chains, it is found in the books of ḥadīth that the practice of twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ began during the caliphate of ʿUmar رضي الله عنه.
② All the Companions unanimously agreed upon this practice, and none objected to it.
③ This is called Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah.
④ From the time of ʿUmar رضي الله عنه, the practice of twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ remained continuously established among the majority of the Ummah.
⑤ Throughout the entire era of ʿUthmān رضي الله عنه.
⑥ Then during the era of ʿAlī رضي الله عنه.
⑦ Then throughout the entire era of the Companions.
⑧ During the times of the Tābiʿīn, Tabaʿ Tābiʿīn, and the Mujtahid Imāms, it always continued.
⑨ The ruling of Tarāwīḥ is definitively established through the third principle of Sharīʿah: Ijmaʿ al-Ṣaḥābah.
Dear Readers!
These are the nine claims of Muftī Qāsmī—none of which he has supported with any evidence. Perhaps he considers his own statements to be authoritative.
You might say that he has provided the evidence of consensus of the Companions on twenty rak‘ahs of Tarāwīḥ. Let us examine that first, and then we will analyze these claims and expose their reality.
Before Proceeding Further
Muftī Qāsmī himself has admitted that the narration found in Muṣannaf Ibn Abī Shaybah, Ṭabarānī, and Bayhaqī, which some Deobandī blind followers commonly present as evidence, is not suitable for proof. However, he did not refrain from employing various tactics to make this invalid evidence appear useful.This narration is not suitable for evidence in any way, and it is the only narration in which twenty rak‘ahs are attributed to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Otherwise, in all authentic narrations, no more than eight rak‘ahs are established from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—a fact which even Ḥanafī scholars themselves admit, as will be shown later.
Muftī Qāsmī himself admits that this narration is not an independent proof, because it is weak, disputed, and the scholars of ḥadīth are unanimous regarding its weakness. Moreover, it contradicts authentic aḥādīth. Therefore, it neither constitutes proof on its own nor can it support any other evidence.
