The Prayer of Salman is a recommended (mandūb) prayer in the month of Rajab al-Asabb, and it became known by the name of Salman al-Farisi (r) because the Prophet (s) taught it to Salman and presented it to him as a gift; it is among the prayers
of great merit, and it is an example of the pouring of divine mercy upon the believers in the month of Rajab al-Asabb, since whoever performs it, Allah erases all his sins from him and gives him the like of the reward of fasting the whole of Rajab; he is recorded among those who pray until the following year; there is raised for him every day the deed of a martyr among the martyrs of Uhud; and the reward of his fasting in the month of Rajab is multiplied. It is among the signs of the believers.
It has been narrated in a number of our books, among them Misbah al-Mutahajjid of Shaykh al-Tusi, the book Fadaʾil Shahr Rajab of al-Haskani, and al-Mazar al-Kabir of al-Mashhadi; and Sayed Ibn Tawus narrated it in al-Iqbal from al-Misbah.
The Prayer of Salman is thirty rakʿas, prayed at three times in the month of Rajab, each part being ten rakʿas, and then it is concluded with a supplication for the fulfillment of needs.
Its narration, as in al-Misbah, is as follows:
Salman al-Farisi (rh) narrated, saying: I entered upon the Messenger of Allah (s) on the last day of Jumada al-Akhira, at a time at which I had not entered upon him before. He said: O Salman, you are one of us, the Ahl al-Bayt; shall I not tell you something? I said: Yes indeed, may my father and my mother be your ransom, O Messenger of Allah.
He said: O Salman, there is no believing man or believing woman who prays in this month thirty rakʿas—and it is the month of Rajab—reciting in each rakʿa the Opening of the Book (Fatihat al-Kitab) once, “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One’” (Qurʾan 112:1) three times, and “Say, ‘O faithless ones!’” (Qurʾan 109:1) three times, but that Allah the Exalted erases from him every sin he committed in his youth and his old age, Allah, Glorified is He, gives him of reward like one who fasted that whole month, he is recorded with Allah among those who pray until the following year, there is raised for him every day the deed of a martyr among the martyrs of Badr, for the fasting of each day he fasts of it the worship of a year is recorded for him, and a thousand degrees are raised for him. And if he fasts the whole month, Allah Almighty saves him from the Fire and makes Paradise his due.
O Salman, Gabriel (a) informed me of that and said: O Muhammad, this is a sign between you and the hypocrites, because the hypocrites do not pray that.
Salman said: So I said: O Messenger of Allah, tell me how I should pray these thirty rakʿas, and when I should pray them?
He said: O Salman, you pray at its beginning ten rakʿas, reciting in each rakʿa Fatihat al-Kitab once, “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One’” (Qurʾan 112:1) three times, and “Say, ‘O faithless ones!’” (Qurʾan 109:1) three times. When you have said the salam, you raise your hands and say: There is no god except Allah, alone, without any partner; to Him belongs the kingdom and to Him belongs all praise; He gives life and brings death, and He is the Living who does not die; in His hand is all good, and He has power over all things.
O Allah, none can withhold what You have given, none can give what You have withheld, and the fortune of the fortunate avails him nothing against You.
Then wipe your face with them. And pray in the middle of the month ten rakʿas, reciting in each rakʿa Fatihat al-Kitab once, “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One’” (Qurʾan 112:1), and “Say, ‘O faithless ones!’” (Qurʾan 109:1) three times. When you have said the salam, raise your hands to the sky and say: There is no god except Allah, alone, without any partner; to Him belongs the kingdom and to Him belongs all praise; He gives life and brings death, and He is the Living who does not die; in His hand is all good, and He has power over all things—a God who is One, Unique, Singular, All-embracing, who has not taken a consort or a son. Then wipe your face with them.
And pray at the end of the month ten rakʿas, reciting in each rakʿa Fatihat al-Kitab once, “Say, ‘He is Allah, the One’” (Qurʾan 112:1) three times and “Say, ‘O faithless ones!’” (Qurʾan 109:1) three times. When you have said the salam, raise your hands to the sky and say: There is no god except Allah, alone, without any partner; to Him belongs the kingdom and to Him belongs all praise; He gives life and brings death, and He is the Living who does not die; in His hand is all good, and He has power over all things; and may Allah bless Muhammad and his pure family; and there is no might and no power except in Allah, the All-exalted, the All-supreme. Then wipe your face with them and ask for your need, for your supplication will be answered, and Allah will place between you and Hell seven trenches, each trench like [the distance] between the heaven and the earth; He will record for you, for every rakʿa, a thousand thousand rakʿas; and there will be written for you an immunity from the Fire and a pass over the Path.
Salman (r) said: When the Prophet (s) had finished the hadith, I fell down prostrating, weeping in thanks to Allah the Exalted for having heard this hadith[1].
Discussion of Its Times
The times specified in the narrations for recommended prayers have a wisdom in constituting their characteristics, and they fall within the manner in which they are performed. So it was necessary to seek out those noble times and to define precisely what is meant by them. The Prayer of Salman (r) is divided into three times in the month of Rajab; so what are those times?
Sayed Ibn Tawus[2] stated explicitly that the prayer is prayed on the first day of the month of Rajab, then its second part on the day of the middle of the month of Rajab, which is the fifteenth day, and its third part is prayed on the last day. His expressions were formulated as headings for the narration and as a classification of it according to the days of the month. It appears that Sayed Ibn Tawus was the first to state this explicitly; then Shaykh ʿAbbas al-Qummi followed him in the book Mafatih al-Jinan, and thereby it became well known on the tongues of the scholars and in modern books of supplications.
The investigation:
But investigation into determining its three times in the month of Rajab requires attending to the wording of the narration and its text, because the text did not mention the first day, the day of the middle or the last day of the month, as Sayed Ibn Tawus and the others stated.
As is clear, the text mentioned the following expressions to refer to the three times: (O Salman, you pray at its beginning ten rakʿas), (And pray in the middle of the month ten rakʿas), (And pray at the end of the month ten rakʿas).
The signification of the text, as it appears to me, is that what is meant by it is something more general than the first, middle and last day of the month of Rajab, such that it includes the first ten [days], the middle ten and the last ten. The beginning of the month is its first days, the middle of the month is the middle days, and the end of the month is its last days; that is, dividing the month into three thirds: a first ten, a middle ten and a last ten.
Language supports this understanding, for the lexicographers mention the expression “the beginning of the month” meaning by it several days—for example, the meaning of (al-ʿurj) is indicated as three nights from the beginning of the month, and the meaning of (al-daʾdaʾ) as three nights from the end of the month, and the like.
The beginning of a thing is its commencement and start. In the month, its beginning may be the first hour, the first day or the first days, depending on the considerations of division intended by the context; so if its middle and its end are mentioned, its beginning is one third of it.
The middle of a thing indicates the half in what has two equal ends, and the following third is a middle between two equal ends, namely the first third and the last third.
The end of a thing is what follows its beginning or comes after what precedes it, and it also applies to the last third, as being what follows the first and the middle of it.
This is supported by the wording of many narrations that expressed the beginning of the month, its middle or its end, meaning by it its first days, its middle days and its last days. We mention among them:
Al-Barqi narrated in al-Mahasin from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), from the Prophet (s), concerning the Sunna of the Prophet in fasting: (As for fasting, it is three days in the month: Thursday at the beginning of the month, Wednesday in the middle of the month, and Thursday at the end of the month)[3].
So the specification of Thursday at the beginning of the month means in the first days of the month: it may be the first, second or third day, up to the tenth of it; and likewise the rest of the days.
And from Ishaq ibn ʿAmmar, from Abu ʿAbd Allah (a), who said: Fasting is done on Wednesday only because no nation in the past was punished except on a Wednesday in the middle of the month; so it is recommended that that day be fasted[4].
So Wednesday in the middle of the month may be the eleventh or twelfth day, up to the twentieth day.
And in the narration of ʿAbd Allah ibn Sinan, he said: Abu ʿAbd Allah (a) said to me: If there are two Thursdays at the beginning of the month, fast the first of them, for it is better; and if there are two Thursdays at the end of the month, fast the last of them, for it is better[5].
In this narration it is expressed that the beginning of the month may contain two Thursdays, and likewise the end of the month; so what is intended in it is the first half of the month and the second half of the month.
And from the Messenger (s), that he said: Whoever fasts three days of Rajab and keeps vigil during their nights in its middle—the thirteenth, the fourteenth and the fifteenth—by Him who sent me with the truth, he will not leave this world except with sincere repentance, and for every day he fasted seventy major sins will be forgiven him... the hadith[6].
The White Days are the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month, and the narration has expressed them as nights in the middle of the month; and they are not its middle except when the month is considered as three thirds, for they fall within the middle ten.
Yes, “the beginning of the month”, “its middle” and “its end” may be used to mean the first day, the middle day and the last day of it; but in that case its signification of that is usually contextual or due to connected or separate indicators. For example, it may be said that it is disliked for a man to have intercourse with his wife at the beginning of the month, its middle and its end; what is meant by this is not dislike throughout the whole month, for it would have sufficed to say that intercourse is disliked for him in the whole month, which is contrary to the established principles. Separate indicators also support this, namely those that indicated the dislike of intercourse on the first day, the middle day and the last day, and that it affects the child. Otherwise, what is meant by the beginning of the month, its middle and its end is the three thirds of the month.
In conclusion, further confirmation that what is meant by the three parts in the Prayer of Salman is the first third, the middle third and the last third is that the narration of ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Haskani concerning the Prayer of Salman, which he cited in his book Fadaʾil Shahr Rajab[7]—and it is among the early sources—contains expressions for the three times that bring the meaning we have mentioned much closer.
His expressions in specifying the times of the Prayer of Salman in the narration are as follows: (Pray, from the beginning of the month, ten rakʿas), (and you pray in the middle of the month the like of that), (then you pray, from the end of the month, ten rakʿas).
So the narration's expression (from the beginning of the month) means that he chooses a day from among the days of the beginning of the month, from the first day to the tenth day; and likewise the expression (from the end of the month) means any day of the last days of the month, from the twentieth day to the thirtieth day.
The Benefits of This Meaning
In conclusion, we would like to mention some distinctive benefits that bear upon adopting the meaning we have mentioned—dividing the timing of the Prayer of Salman in the month of Rajab al-Asabb—and they are as follows:
1 – Adopting this meaning widens for the believers the opportunities to perform it and obtain its great benefits in the month of Rajab al-Asabb: whoever misses the first day has latitude until the tenth day to perform its first part, and likewise in the middle and the last ones.
2 – One can be at ease despite differences in establishing the crescent at the beginning of the month: if it becomes clear to him that the sighting or the calculation was mistaken, he can repeat it in the rest of the first ten days.
3 – Great opportunities become available to a menstruating woman to attain the reward of the great Prayer of Salman: if the days of her period were from the beginning of the days and she then became pure during the first ten, the opportunity to perform it is still available; and likewise in the middle or the end.
4 – Whoever wishes to perform it avoids the problem that may occur at the end of the month: he may think the month is thirty days and so postpone it to the thirtieth day, and then it becomes clear to him that the crescent of the month of Shaʿban has been established, so that the last day has certainly passed him by. But if he prays at the end of the month in the sense of the last ten, he will not miss its last part.
We ask Allah to grant the believing men and believing women success in acts of obedience in the month of Rajab al-Asabb, and that Allah bestow upon them good things and blessings.
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[1] - Misbah al-Mutahajjid, vol. 2, p. 817.
[2] - Iqbal al-Aʿmal, vol. 2, p. 637.
[3] - al-Mahasin, vol. 1, p. 17.
[4] - Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih, vol. 2, p. 83
[5] - Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih, vol. 2, p. 83.
[6] - Iqbal al-Aʿmal, vol. 2, p. 637., and his wording was: (And among the prayer on the first day of the month of Rajab: what we have narrated by our chain of transmission to a group, among them my grandfather Abu Jaʿfar al-Tusi (rh))..
[7] - P. 501.
