Prayer

How many rak'ahs are there in each prayer?

The fard is fixed at 2, 4, 4, 3 and 4; the sunnah rak'ahs around them differ by school, so any single total belongs to one school and not to all.

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Also asked as Rakat count for the five prayers · How many sunnah and fard rakahs? · Rakah chart

  1. Fajr - 2 sunnah, then 2 fard
  2. Dhuhr - 4 sunnah (Hanafi; two in the other schools), 4 fard, 2 sunnah after
  3. Asr - 4 sunnah before, not emphasised, then 4 fard
  4. Maghrib - 3 fard, then 2 sunnah after
  5. Isha - 4 fard, 2 sunnah after, then witr as an odd number
  6. Jumu'ah - 2 fard in place of Dhuhr, with sunnah rak'ahs before and after

Worth knowing. The totals passed around as charts - 4, 12, 8, 7, 17 - are the Hanafi tally. Witr is wajib to the Hanafis and a strongly emphasised sunnah to the others, and the counts of nafl at the edges vary. Fard is the part nobody differs about, which is why it is the part this app puts on the card.

Sahih al-Bukhari 1182 and 998; Sahih Muslim 725 and 729; Jami' at-Tirmidhi 428, graded hasan

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