When to Supplicate After the Prayer, Supplicating in English, and Raising the Finger for the Tashahhud

Answered by Ustadh Tabraze Azam

Question: When your pray, do you make du’a (where you raise both hands together) right at the end of prayer or at the end of each group of rakhats – eg. (zuhr – 4sunnah, 4fard ,2 sunnah,2 nafl)?

When you make dua at the end of salah, can you make dua in english and make up your own dua for what you want?

When you sit down for tashahhud and say attahiyatu, do you point you index finger towards the qibla after ashadu anna la illaha illalah? (will namaz be invalid if you don’t do it)?

Answer: Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh,

I pray that you are well, insha’Allah.

It is from the sunna to stand to complete one’s post-fard prayers immediately.

However, it is recommended to have a small gap between them such that one can say a short, post-fard, supplication as the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) did. [`Ala al-Din `Abidin, al-Hadiyya al-`Ala’iyya; Shurunbulali, Maraqi al-Falah]

Abu Umama al-Bahili (Allah be pleased with him) narrates that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) was asked as to which supplication (du`a) was most quickly accepted, he replied: ‘In the middle of the night and after the obligatory (fard) prayers.’ [Tirmidhi]

The upshot is that one would optimally make one’s longer supplications after completing one’s superogatory prayers.

Supplicating during the Prayer

It is sunna to use Qur’anic or prophetic supplications at the end of one’s prayer. However, if one were to use one’s own words, one would need to avoid asking for something that is possible to ask of others, such as, ‘O Allah! Give me Zaid’s car!’ Rather, one would ask for well-being (`afiya), forgiveness, mercy and so on — the like of which Allah, alone, bestows.

Raising one’s finger in the Sitting (tashahud)

Raising one’s index finger in the two sittings (tashahud) is a confirmed sunna. One raises one’s finger when negating, ‘There is no god’ (La ilaha), and lowers it when affirming, except Allah (illa Allah).

And Allah knows best.

Wassalam,

Tabraze Azam

Checked & Approved by Faraz Rabbani