What Is the Number of Cycles for the Obligatory Prayers?

Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam

Question: Assalam alaykum

What is the number of rak’ats (cycles) for the obligatory prayers? What are the prayers besides the obligatory prayers?

Answer: Wa alaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,

The obligatory cycles (rak`ats) are seventeen: two at Fajr, four at Zuhr, `Asr and `Isha, and three at Maghrib. The three cycles for Witr, after the `Isha prayer, are also operationally obligatory. Hence, the total minimally due is twenty cycles.

For answers to your other question, please see: What Are the Confirmed Sunna and Non-Confirmed Sunna Prayers Associated With the Obligatory Prayers? and: The Fiqh of Voluntary (Nafl) Prayers

And consider taking the following free class at SeekersGuidance: Absolute Essentials of Islam: Basic Hanafi Jurisprudence (STEP)

And Allah Most High alone knows best.

[Ustadh] Tabraze Azam

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Ustadh Tabraze Azam holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Leicester, where he also served as the President of the Islamic Society. He memorised the entire Qur’an in his hometown of Ipswich at the tender age of sixteen, and has since studied the Islamic Sciences in traditional settings in the UK, Jordan and Turkey. He is currently pursuing advanced studies in Jordan, where he is presently based with his family.