Publisher's Synopsis
The Prophet (ﷺ) said: "The first thing for which a person will be brought to account on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayer. If it is complete, then the voluntary (prayers) will also be recorded for him (as an increase). If it is not complete then Allah will say to His angels: 'Look and see whether you find any voluntary prayers for My slave, and take them to make up what is lacking from his obligatory prayers.' Then all his deeds will be reckoned in like manner."[1]
This hadith informs that if we fall short in our obligatory prayers then we had better have some voluntary prayers in the account to help complete the deficient parts of our prayers. Any Muslim who ONLY relies on his voluntary prayers to be counted for on the Day of Judgement is placing his soul at risk. In another narration the Prophet (ﷺ)said "If anyone prays in a day and in a night twelve rak'ahs voluntarily (supererogatory prayer), a house will be built from him in Paradise on account of these (rak'ahs)."[2] This is another encouragement for us to strive in maintaining the voluntary prayers. All we need to do is add a few extra minutes of praying to our daily schedule to earn this reward. Imam Abu Dawud has complied the most comprehensive collection of hadith on this subject. Since this topic is extremely important, I felt the need to embark on it by translating this chapter with the explanation from Sheikh Muhammed Azimabadi. [1] Ibn Majah #1426, graded as being Sahih by Imam Al-Albani [2] Sahih Muslim #728
