The Nights of Ramadan

Tarawih is the special congregational prayer of the nights of Ramadan, offered after the obligatory Isha throughout the fasting month and not at any other time of year. The name comes from a word for rest, referring to the short pauses taken between sets of the prayer's many units. Where the five daily prayers are brief, tarawih is long: worshippers stand through numerous rak'ah while the prayer-leader recites extended passages of the Qur'an, and in many mosques the entire text is recited across the month, a portion each night, so that the Qur'an is completed by Ramadan's end.

The prayer gives the nights of Ramadan their distinctive character. Mosques fill after Isha; families and neighbourhoods gather; the reciter's voice carrying long stretches of scripture is one of the defining sounds of the month. Attendance is voluntary and highly recommended rather than obligatory, and its reward is described in the tradition as the forgiveness of past shortcomings for those who keep it in faith.