Wājib, Sunnah and Mustaḥabb

Wājib — and this is a Ḥanafī definition — is technically a little less than farḍ, in theory, but in practice equally important. Wājib means necessary. Praying the witr prayer, for the Aḥnāf, the Ḥanafīs, is wājib: whoever misses witr must, according to the Ḥanafīs, make qaḍāʾ of it — a very important point. Not so for the Shāfiʿīs. For the Shāfiʿī, witr is a sunnah muʾakkadah, something that has to be done, but it is not wājib; and the Shāfiʿī definition of wājib is itself different from the Ḥanafī one, which is worth bearing in mind.

Sunnah is a term everybody knows, and the notion attached to it — that a sunnah is "only sunnah," and so not important — is rubbish: sunnah is absolutely important. Sunnah is the actual tradition of the Prophet (peace be upon him). It consists of what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) said, what he did, and what he advised or tacitly approved of in his lifetime — his spoken words, the things he commanded people to do, what he himself did, and the situations he saw and approved of. Said, did, and approved of: this is the sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him). In matters of worship, sunnah is of two types: sunnah muʾakkadah and sunnah ghayr muʾakkadah. Muʾakkad means very regular — the absolutely confirmed sunnah of the Prophet (peace be upon him), such that whoever belongs to his ummah must follow in the footsteps of the Prophet and perform it. It is not farḍ, and not compulsory: Allah (swt) will not question a person on the Day of Judgement over a missed sunnah. Yet the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) has said that whoever does not practise his sunnah is not of him — dangerous — and such a person will get no easy hearing from the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) on the Day of Judgement. The second type of sunnah in worship is sunnah ghayr muʾakkadah, meaning what the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) sometimes did and sometimes left out. The sunnah of the fajr prayer, for example, is sunnah muʾakkadah, and cannot be left out. The sunnah prayers of ẓuhr, at the front and at the back — before the farḍ and after it — are also sunnah muʾakkadah, and must not be left out; it is not allowed. The sunnah of the maghrib prayer, and the last two rakʿahs of sunnah after the ʿishāʾ prayer, are all of the muʾakkad kind, which must be performed. So whenever a sunnah is described as muʾakkadah, the kind of sunnah meant is a confirmed one, which the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) always did as his practice.

The next category is mustaḥabb, which means preferred, liked. It refers to those acts of the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) which are all voluntary — his saying, for example, that whoever fasts voluntarily on Mondays and Thursdays will be given such-and-such ḥasanāt by Allah (swt). Whoever performs a mustaḥabb act receives ḥasanāt, reward, for it; whoever does not receives nothing — absolutely nothing. A great many voluntary acts fall into this category of the liked and preferred: things encouraged for those able to do them.