2 of 6 · A night in Madinah · c. 8–10 AH · The house of Maymunah, Madinah
'Abdullah ibn 'Abbas رضي الله عنه
The Night Prayer Beside the Prophet
Ibn 'Abbas once spent the night at the house of his aunt Maymunah, wanting to see how the Prophet ﷺ prayed at night. He lay across the width of the bedding while the Prophet ﷺ and his wife lay along its length.
In the last part of the night the Prophet ﷺ rose, wiped the sleep from his face, recited the closing verses of Surah Al 'Imran, and made wudu' from a hanging water-skin. Ibn 'Abbas did the same and came to stand beside him on his left. The Prophet ﷺ took him by the ear, drew him round to his right, and prayed, then lay down until Bilal called the dawn prayer.
A boy was corrected gently, by hand and without a word, and he never forgot where to stand. Through him the community has a careful picture of the Prophet's night prayer.
A teacher who corrects with gentleness leaves a lesson that lasts a lifetime.
When you must correct someone, can you do it as simply and kindly as this?
- Sahih al-Bukhari, Kitab al-Wudu' and Kitab al-Adhan (the hadith of Ibn 'Abbas at Maymunah's)Sahih · in the two Sahihs
- Sahih Muslim 763Sahih · in the two Sahihs
What the hadith grades mean
- Sahih (authentic): an unbroken chain of trustworthy, precise narrators, free of hidden flaws or contradiction. It is acted upon.
- Hasan (good): like sahih, but a narrator's precision is slightly lighter. It is also accepted and acted upon. "Hasan sahih" means it reaches sahih by its routes.
- Da'if (weak): a break in the chain or a narrator who is not reliable enough. It is not used to establish beliefs or rulings.
- Very weak (munkar, matruk): a seriously flawed chain or a narrator accused of lying. It is not relied on at all.
- Mawdu' (fabricated): falsely attributed to the Prophet ﷺ. It may not be narrated as his words except to warn against it.
- The two Sahihs: every hadith with a full chain in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim is accepted as sahih by the scholars of hadith.
- Historical report: biographies and histories (Ibn Ishaq, Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabari) record events with chains that are often incomplete. They are used for the story, not for rulings.
- Hadith scholars grade a narration; the four madhhabs do not. Where a hadith carries a ruling, the page shows which schools act on it.
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