Al Minah Al `Aliyyah (21)

Fourthly,

Dhuhr Time

Sunnan! 

This includes various areas of discussion

The first subject matter is concerned with the Sunnan that should be performed before the prayer as well as those thereafter :

We have already discussed the regular Sunnan and we mentioned that it is Sunnah to offer four raka ’at before the noon prayer and an additional four thereafter as indicated by the hadith of ‘Aishah and Umm Habibah (may Allah be pleased with them both ).

The second area under discussion

is to lengthen the first raka ’ah :

The hadith of Abu Sa’id al-Khudri t who narrated the following states:

“The Iqamah for Dhuhr prayer would be made and a person could go to the Al-Baqi’, relieve himself, perform ablution and go (to the mosque), and the Messenger of Allah r would still be in the first raka’ah, making it lengthy.”^[1]

Accordingly, it is Sunnah to prolong the first raka’ah of Dhuhr prayer and the same is applicable if a person prays alone. Unfortunately however, this practice is one of the neglected Sunnan. We ask Allah, the Almighty, to make us of those who are eager to apply and adhere to the Sunnah.

The fourth point of focus is to delay

the prayer when it is hot until it cools down :

What substantiates this is the following elevated hadith (i.e. marfu’ and this means that the hadith is traced directly to the Prophet r) narrated by Abu Hurairah t that the Prophet r said,

“If it is very hot, then pray the Dhuhr prayer when it becomes (a bit) cooler, as the severity of the heat is from the raging of the Hell-fire.”^[2]

Ibn ‘Uthaimeen (may Allah have mercy on him) said, “As for what people used to do, namely, praying after the end of the zawal time (when the sun moves away from its central meridian) by half an hour or an hour, they said that this was just to avoid the sun’s heat. In fact, this is not true as it is known that the sun becomes hotter after the zawal time. Hence, if we say that the zawal in summer ends at 12:00pm and ‘Asr time at 4:30pm, this means that the time of Ibrad (waiting until it cools down) will continue until 4:00 pm approximately.”^[3] 

Ibrad is general for the one who prays in congregation or alone and this is the correct opinion that was adopted by Sheikh bin ‘Uthaimeen (may Allah have mercy on him). This includes women too, because of the general meaning of the hadith of Abu Hurairah.