Is Tarawih 8 or 20 Rakats

How to Choose between Tarawih and Make-Up Prayers in Ramadan?


Hanafi Fiqh

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

I have to make up many missed prayers.

What is the ruling on whether to do the tarawih prayer during Ramadan or first to make up the missed prayers and leave the tarawih prayer?

Can you please give the ruling for both men and women?

Answer

I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits. It is superior and higher resolution to do one’s tarawih and a regular amount of make up prayers. If you struggle to do this, the obligation of the make-up prayers will be prioritized over the emphasized sunna of the tarawih prayers.

Do your best, rely on Allah–yet don’t overwhelm yourself, and ask Allah for acceptance.

Related Answers:

Should One Perform Sunna and Nafl Prayers When One Has Many Makeup Prayers?

Is It Permissible to Skip Non-Obligatory and Recommended Acts of the Prayer When One Has Many Make-Up Prayers to Perform?

And Allah alone gives success.

[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus and then in Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), as well as his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age. He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.