DHUHR
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim
Now we will talk about the dhuhr prayer, the second of the five daily prayers for practicing Muslims. Dhuhr The timing of the prayer is when the sun is exactly at it’s highest peak.. Although won’t be a problem, there is an allowable period for praying Dhuhr, it’s approximately 3-4 hours. There is a period of time between Dhuhr and Asr, the afternoon prayer.
Dhuhr prayer consists of four mandatory or fard rakahs or 4 single units of prayer, Before the mandatory unit of prayer, there is four rakah units of sunnah or voluntary prayers and after the mandatory unit of prayer, two additional rakahs of prayer are generally offered as well. The sunnah aspects of prayer are completed voluntarily, so you do not need to do these, but I will still start with the sunnah units of the Dhuhr prayer.
Before the fard, there are four rakahs of sunnah, so you can either pray at your home before you go to the mosque or you can pray at the mosque. Location doesn’t really matter. You start as you usually start any other prayer with takbeer and recite the necessary recitations. Then proceed with ruq’uh, sujud and you sit down in the second cycle. Recite at-tahiyyatu and nothing else. Then get up for the third cycle. For the third cycle, you start with Bismillah, besmele, then recite Fatiha and zhamm-i surah, meaning a little bit from the Qur’an and repeat this process for the fourth rakah as well.
The only difference between the voluntary sunnah prayers and the other four mandatory rakahs, is that you only recite At-tahiyyatu when you sit down, and nothing else. When you get up, you start with Bismillah and Fatiha directly.
Then comes time to perform the fard. The fard of Dhuhr is also four rakahs. As we start any prayer, we will also start Dhuhr with takbeer, followed by the recitation Suhbanaka and istiazah, followed by Fatiha and zhamm-i surah.
Then we complete the first cycle or unit of prayer. The second cycle is done in the same way as the first, with the exception of siting down after sujud. Just as done in the sunnah prayer, we will recite At-Tahiyyatu and stand again. When a mandatory or fard prayer is longer than two rakahs, during the third and fourth rakah, you only recite Fatiha. You do not recite any extra verses from the Qur’an. Any the recitation of Fatiha, you will go to rukuh and then sujud.
And after the four rakahs of mandatory prayer, there is two more rakahs of voluntary prayer, a very highly recommended and strong sunnah. Of the sunnah prayers, the first four rakahs of the Dhuhr prayer are able to be made up when missed due to their rank in strength of the sunnah. If you ever miss the first four sunnah rakahs of the Dhuhr prayer, you can make them up after completion of the mandatory prayer.
There are two ways to make up the missed sunnah prayers. You can either pray the four rakah sunnah prayer first and then the last two rakahs following that, or vice versa. However, the ulama, or scholars, suggest you complete the first set of sunnah before the second. These are all things to keep in mind regarding the Dhuhr prayer. Thank you.
