Is It Allowed to Sleep After the ‘Asr Prayer?

Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Question

My kids finish school at 3:30. After taking lunch, they become very tired and need some rest.

Are they allowed to sleep after Asr?

Answer

The established position of the Hanafi school is that it is not disliked to sleep after Asr. It is authentically established in hadiths that Ali (Allah be pleased with him) would sleep after Asr, and the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) was aware of this and did not interdict it. As Imam Abu Ja‘far al-Tahawi explains, this proves that it is not disliked to sleep after Asr.

As for sleeping between Maghrib and Isha, it is only disliked when one fears:

• a) missing Isha prayer; or
• b) missing praying Isha in congregation, in the case of men.

If neither fear exists, Ibn Abidin quotes Imam Tahawi as explaining that it is not disliked.

And Allah alone gives success.

Wassalam,

[Shaykh] Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Faraz Rabbani spent ten years studying with some of the leading scholars of recent times, first in Damascus, and then in Amman, Jordan. His teachers include the foremost theologian of recent times in Damascus, the late Shaykh Adib al-Kallas (may Allah have mercy on him), as well as his student Shaykh Hassan al-Hindi, one of the leading Hanafi fuqaha of the present age. He returned to Canada in 2007, where he founded SeekersGuidance in order to meet the urgent need to spread Islamic knowledge–both online and on the ground–in a reliable, relevant, inspiring, and accessible manner. He is the author of: Absolute Essentials of Islam: Faith, Prayer, and the Path of Salvation According to the Hanafi School (White Thread Press, 2004.) Since 2011, Shaykh Faraz has been named one of the 500 most influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center.