> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The 15th of Shaʿbān: What the Texts Say - URL: https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-15th-of-shaban/ - Published: 2026-09-27T02:57:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-02T00:13:38.000Z - Description: What the Qur'an, the hadith and the scholars actually say about the night of mid-Shaʿbān, Shab-e-Barāt, its prayers and its fast, with gradings checked and both sides heard. - Author: Mohammad Siddiqui - Tags: Deen New to the Qur'an? Start with [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), then read [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/). All articles: [Deen: Start Here](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/deen/). Deen · A sourcebook ليلة النصف من شعبان Every year, a fortnight or so before Ramadan, the same argument comes round. One relative forwards a long list of prayers for Shab-e-Barāt. Another forwards a message saying the whole night is an innovation. A third asks, reasonably, whether anyone has actually looked at the texts. This page is my attempt to do that, in the same way I tried to with the Mawlid. The method is the one from the [Mawlid Sourcebook](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-mawlid-sourcebook-2/). Pull the questions apart, because people who argue about "the 15th of Shaʿbān" are usually arguing about five different things at once. Give the texts with their gradings, and say who graded them. Let each camp speak in its own words. Then note what almost nobody disputes. This is a research article, not a fatwa. I have tried to report each position fairly and to check every reference, but for a ruling on your own practice please ask a qualified scholar you trust. ### The short version 1. The Qur'an does not name the 15th of Shaʿbān. The "blessed night" of Sūrat al-Dukhān (44:3) is, for most exegetes including Ibn Kathīr, Laylat al-Qadr in Ramadan.[1](#src-1)[3](#src-3) 2. One hadith carries the case for the night's virtue: Allah looks upon His creation on the night of mid-Shaʿbān and forgives all except a *mushrik* or a *mushāḥin* (one harbouring enmity). Individual chains are weak; al-Albānī and others graded it sound by its combined routes. Other hadith experts did not accept it.[6](#src-6)[22](#src-22)[31](#src-31) 3. The report "pray its night and fast its day" (Ibn Mājah 1388) is graded fabricated by al-Albānī and Darussalam, because of the narrator Ibn Abī Sabra. The 100-rakʿa "Ṣalāt al-Alfiyya" has no sound basis at all; al-Nawawī called it a reprehensible innovation.[4](#src-4)[28](#src-28)[27](#src-27) 4. Fasting much of Shaʿbān is firmly established from the Prophet ﷺ (Bukhārī 1969 and 1970).[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12) Fasting the 15th as a special fast is a separate and weaker matter. 5. The real disagreement is narrow: whether a Muslim may give this one night extra private worship. Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Rajab and the Deobandi scholars say yes, individually. Ibn Bāz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and the Saudi Permanent Committee say that singling it out is itself the innovation. Fireworks, set prayers and compulsory gatherings are criticised from both sides.[26](#src-26)[25](#src-25)[35](#src-35)[32](#src-32)[33](#src-33) **Contents** 1. [Five questions, not one](#questions) 2. [When it falls](#calendar) 3. [Scripture first: Sūrat al-Dukhān](#quran) 4. [The hadith and their gradings](#texts) 5. [Fasting in Shaʿbān](#fasting) 6. [The prayers that were invented](#alfiyya) 7. [The first split: Syria and the Ḥijāz](#early) 8. [The scholars in their own words](#scholars) 9. [Shab-e-Barāt in South Asia](#customs) 10. [The Shia fifteenth](#shia) 11. [The questions, answered one by one](#answers) 12. [What is agreed](#agreed) 13. [A simple test](#test) 14. [Terms](#glossary) 15. [Sources](#sources) ## Five questions, not one When someone says "the 15th of Shaʿbān is a bidʿa" and someone else says "it is the Night of Forgiveness", they are rarely disagreeing about the same claim. At least five questions hide under the one label. Does the night itself have a virtue other nights lack? Is there a specific prayer for it? Is the fast of the 15th a sunna in its own right? Is it right to gather in the mosque for it? And what of the customs that have grown around it, particularly in South Asia: grave visits, halwa, lamps and fireworks? A scholar can say yes to the first and no to the other four, and several major ones did exactly that. ## When it falls Shaʿbān is the eighth month of the Hijri calendar, the one before Ramadan. In Islamic reckoning the night comes before the day, so "the night of the 15th" is the evening that ends the 14th. For 1448 AH, the Umm al-Qurā calendar places 15 Shaʿbān on Saturday 23 January 2027.[45](#src-45) The night in question would then be the evening of Friday 22 January 2027\. Local moon sighting can move this by a day either way, so treat it as around 22–23 January 2027, subject to moon sighting and your local authority's announcement. In Australia that will usually mean the announcement from your state's Islamic council or your own mosque. ## Scripture first: Sūrat al-Dukhān The only Qur'anic passage regularly brought into this discussion is the opening of Sūrat al-Dukhān: إِنَّآ أَنزَلْنَـٰهُ فِى لَيْلَةٍۢ مُّبَـٰرَكَةٍ ۚ إِنَّا كُنَّا مُنذِرِينَ ۝ فِيهَا يُفْرَقُ كُلُّ أَمْرٍ حَكِيمٍ "Indeed, We sent it down on a blessed night, for We always warn \[against evil\]. On that night every matter of wisdom is ordained." Qur'an 44:3–4 (Khattab's translation, as shown on quran.com)[1](#src-1) If this "blessed night" were the 15th of Shaʿbān, the case would be settled by scripture. Almost no major exegete reads it that way. The same Qur'an says it was sent down in Ramadan (2:185) and on Laylat al-Qadr (97:1),[2](#src-2) and Ibn Kathīr identifies the night of al-Dukhān as Laylat al-Qadr without hesitation. The view that it means mid-Shaʿbān is reported from the Successor ʿIkrima, through chains in al-Ṭabarī and others. Ibn Kathīr knew that view and dismissed it in a phrase: whoever says it is mid-Shaʿbān, as is reported from ʿIkrima, *fa-qad abʿada al-nujʿa*, has gone far afield, since the text of the Qur'an puts the night in Ramadan.[3](#src-3) A related report, that lifespans are "cut off from Shaʿbān to Shaʿbān", comes through ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad b. al-Mughīra and is *mursal*: it skips the Companion and does not reach the Prophet ﷺ with a connected chain. Ibn Kathīr himself calls it mursal and says a report of that kind cannot be set against the explicit texts.[3](#src-3) The fatwa service at IslamWeb, reviewing these reports, classes both the ʿIkrima reading and the ʿUthmān report as weak.[28](#src-28) So the Qur'an does not decide this. People who defend the night generally accept that; the case, where it exists, rests on hadith. ## The hadith and their gradings I have checked each of the following on sunnah.com. Where the grading given there is Darussalam's, I say so; where I cite al-Albānī or another scholar, I name the work. (If "ḍaʿīf", "mawḍūʿ" and "ṣaḥīḥ by its routes" are unfamiliar, the companion piece [How a hadith is judged](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-a-hadith-is-judged/) explains them.) | Reference | Narrator | What it says | Grading | | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Ibn Mājah 1390](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) | Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī | Allah looks upon (*yaṭṭaliʿu*) His creation on the night of mid-Shaʿbān and forgives all except a mushrik or a mushāḥin. | Ḍaʿīf for this chain (Darussalam, on sunnah.com). Al-Albānī: ṣaḥīḥ by its combined routes, al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa 1144.[6](#src-6)[22](#src-22) | | Ibn Ḥibbān, Ṣaḥīḥ (al-Iḥsān 12/481, no. 5665) | Muʿādh b. Jabal | The same wording, through Makḥūl and the Syrian transmitters. | Included by Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ; later critics differed over its chain.[21](#src-21)[31](#src-31) | | [Tirmidhī 739](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:739?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (and [Ibn Mājah 1389](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1389?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)) | ʿĀʾisha | She finds the Prophet ﷺ at al-Baqīʿ; Allah descends on the night of mid-Shaʿbān and forgives more than the hairs of the flocks of Kalb. | Ḍaʿīf (Darussalam). Al-Tirmidhī reports that al-Bukhārī weakened it.[8](#src-8)[5](#src-5) | | [Ibn Mājah 1388](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1388?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) | ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib | "Stand in prayer in its night and fast its day"; Allah descends at sunset and asks who seeks forgiveness. | Mawḍūʿ (Darussalam). Al-Albānī: fabricated, al-Silsila al-Ḍaʿīfa 2132.[4](#src-4)[24](#src-24) | ### The hadith of forgiveness إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَيَطَّلِعُ فِي لَيْلَةِ النِّصْفِ مِنْ شَعْبَانَ فَيَغْفِرُ لِجَمِيعِ خَلْقِهِ إِلاَّ لِمُشْرِكٍ أَوْ مُشَاحِنٍ "Allah looks upon \[His creation\] on the night of the middle of Shaʿbān and forgives all His creation, except an idolater or one who harbours enmity." Ibn Mājah 1390, from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī. Chain graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam; the hadith graded ṣaḥīḥ by its routes by al-Albānī, al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa 1144.[6](#src-6)[22](#src-22) This is the hadith on which the whole positive case rests, and it is worth being honest about its shape. Ibn Mājah's chain runs through Ibn Lahīʿa, a narrator whose reports are widely treated as weak, which is the usual reason given for the "ḍaʿīf" that the sunnah.com page carries from Darussalam.[6](#src-6) Ibn Ḥibbān included a version from Muʿādh b. Jabal in his Ṣaḥīḥ.[21](#src-21) Al-Albānī gathered the routes (he lists reports attributed to Muʿādh, Abū Thaʿlaba al-Khushanī, ʿAbdullāh b. ʿAmr, Abū Mūsā, Abū Hurayra, Abū Bakr, ʿAwf b. Mālik and ʿĀʾisha) and concluded in al-Silsila al-Ṣaḥīḥa 1144 that it is *ṣaḥīḥ bi-majmūʿ ṭuruqihi*, sound by the sum of its routes.[22](#src-22) He also lists it in Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ, where the version from Abū Thaʿlaba (no. 771) is graded ḥasan.[23](#src-23) Not everyone agrees. Al-Dāraquṭnī, in his *ʿIlal* (6/50–51), is reported to have said the hadith is not established,[31](#src-31) and the Mālikī judge Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī wrote that nothing reliable exists about this night, whether on its virtue or on lifespans being fixed in it.[28](#src-28) So the fair summary is this: a serious body of scholars accepts the forgiveness hadith, a serious body does not, and nobody on either side claims it is as strong as a hadith in al-Bukhārī. The critics also make a point that deserves a hearing. The divine descent in the last third of the night is not special to Shaʿbān at all: al-Bukhārī records that "our Lord comes down every night to the nearest heaven when the last third of the night remains".[9](#src-9) So the forgiveness and nearness that people seek on the 15th are, on the soundest evidence, on offer every night of the year, and a person who prays in the last third of this night is doing what is recommended on any night.[31](#src-31) Notice what the hadith does and does not say. It describes something Allah does on that night. It does not command any act of worship: no prayer, no fast, no gathering. The one human condition it mentions is a negative one. Forgiveness is withheld from the one who associates partners with Allah and from the *mushāḥin*, the person nursing a grudge or quarrel against a fellow Muslim. I will come back to that. It is worth knowing now that the same exclusion appears in a hadith that no one disputes: Muslim records that deeds are presented every Monday and Thursday and everyone is forgiven except a man with rancour (*shaḥnāʾ*) between him and his brother, and it is said, "wait for these two until they are reconciled".[18](#src-18) ### ʿĀʾisha at al-Baqīʿ The best-known story attached to the night is ʿĀʾisha's. She misses the Prophet ﷺ one night, goes looking, and finds him in the cemetery of al-Baqīʿ. He tells her that Allah descends to the lowest heaven on the night of mid-Shaʿbān and forgives more people than there are hairs on the sheep of the tribe of Kalb. This is the textual root of visiting graves on Shab-e-Barāt. Al-Tirmidhī recorded it and, unusually, weakened it himself in the same place. He says he knows it from ʿĀʾisha only through al-Ḥajjāj b. Arṭāt, and that he heard al-Bukhārī declare it weak because the chain is broken twice: Yaḥyā b. Abī Kathīr did not hear from ʿUrwa, and al-Ḥajjāj did not hear from Yaḥyā.[8](#src-8) Darussalam grades it ḍaʿīf on sunnah.com, and so does al-Albānī.[5](#src-5) The Prophet's ﷺ visits to al-Baqīʿ at night are known from other, sound reports: ʿĀʾisha describes him going out at the end of the night to pray for the people buried there, with no month mentioned;[14](#src-14) what is weak is the link between this particular visit and this particular night. ### "Pray its night and fast its day" إِذَا كَانَتْ لَيْلَةُ النِّصْفِ مِنْ شَعْبَانَ فَقُومُوا لَيْلَهَا وَصُومُوا يَوْمَهَا "When it is the night of the middle of Shaʿbān, spend its night in prayer and fast its day." Ibn Mājah 1388, attributed to ʿAlī. Graded mawḍūʿ (fabricated) by Darussalam; al-Albānī, al-Silsila al-Ḍaʿīfa 2132.[4](#src-4)[24](#src-24) This is the only report that actually tells people to do something on the 15th, which is why it matters so much. Its chain passes through Abū Bakr b. ʿAbdillāh b. Abī Sabra. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, as his son ʿAbdullāh reports, said Ibn Abī Sabra used to fabricate hadith, and Ibn Ḥajar in Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb records that the critics accused him of forgery.[30](#src-30)[28](#src-28) On that basis al-Albānī graded the report fabricated, and Darussalam's grading on sunnah.com agrees.[29](#src-29)[4](#src-4) Al-Būṣīrī, in his notes on the reports found only in Ibn Mājah, called its chain weak because of Ibn Abī Sabra, adding that Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn said he fabricated hadith.[53](#src-53) There is a minority view worth recording accurately. Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, the Deobandi jurist, revisited this hadith after readers questioned him and concluded that it is weak rather than fabricated, since some critics treated Ibn Abī Sabra as a weak narrator and not a forger. He was clear, though, that "being reported by a weak narrator, it cannot be relied upon in the matter of the injunctions of Shariah."[36](#src-36) So even the scholar most sympathetic to the fast did not rest a ruling on this hadith. ## Fasting in Shaʿbān Here the ground is firm. ʿĀʾisha describes the Prophet's ﷺ voluntary fasting: فَمَا رَأَيْتُ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم اسْتَكْمَلَ صِيَامَ شَهْرٍ إِلاَّ رَمَضَانَ، وَمَا رَأَيْتُهُ أَكْثَرَ صِيَامًا مِنْهُ فِي شَعْبَانَ "I never saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ fast a whole month except Ramadan, and I never saw him fast more in any month than in Shaʿbān." [Bukhārī 1969](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1969?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); see also [Bukhārī 1970](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1970?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [Muslim 1156](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1156b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Ṣaḥīḥ.[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12)[17](#src-17) Usāma b. Zayd asked him why. The answer, in al-Nasāʾī, is that Shaʿbān is a month people neglect, between Rajab and Ramadan, in which deeds are raised to the Lord of the worlds, "and I love that my deeds be raised while I am fasting" ([Nasāʾī 2357](https://sunnah.com/nasai:2357?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), graded ḥasan by Darussalam).[20](#src-20) That is a sunna of the month, not of the 15th. The 15th can also be fasted as one of the "white days", the 13th, 14th and 15th of each lunar month, which the Prophet ﷺ recommended in general terms ([Bukhārī 1981](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1981?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and its chapter heading).[13](#src-13) A person who fasts the 15th of Shaʿbān for that reason, or because it is a Monday or Thursday, is doing something nobody objects to. The dispute is only about fasting it *as the fast of mid-Shaʿbān*, on the strength of Ibn Mājah 1388. ### The "do not fast after mid-Shaʿbān" hadith إِذَا انْتَصَفَ شَعْبَانُ فَلاَ تَصُومُوا "When Shaʿbān is half over, do not fast." [Abū Dāwūd 2337](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2337?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī; [Tirmidhī 738](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:738?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), "ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ" in al-Tirmidhī's own words, ṣaḥīḥ per Darussalam.[19](#src-19)[7](#src-7) This one has an interesting history. It comes only through al-ʿAlāʾ b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān from his father from Abū Hurayra. Abū Dāwūd records, right after it, that Aḥmad was asked why a leading transmitter would not narrate it; the answer was that the Prophet ﷺ was known to join Shaʿbān to Ramadan, which seemed to contradict it. Abū Dāwūd adds that he himself saw no contradiction.[19](#src-19) Some early critics had reservations about the hadith on exactly this ground. Al-Tirmidhī accepted it and explained it narrowly: it is aimed at someone who has not been fasting and then starts fasting in the second half of Shaʿbān as a kind of pre-Ramadan fast.[7](#src-7) That reading sits comfortably with [Bukhārī 1914](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1914?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), which forbids fasting a day or two before Ramadan unless it matches a person's habit.[10](#src-10) ## The prayers that were invented If the forgiveness hadith is the part of this subject that deserves respect, the "Ṣalāt al-Alfiyya" is the part that deserves none. The name means "the prayer of the thousand": a hundred rakʿas, with Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ recited ten times in each, making a thousand recitations. It circulated with elaborate promises of reward. Ibn al-Jawzī listed the reports for it in al-Mawḍūʿāt, his collection of fabricated hadith.[27](#src-27) Its twin is Ṣalāt al-Raghāʾib, twelve rakʿas between Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ on the first Friday night of Rajab. Al-Nawawī, the great Shāfiʿī, did not soften his verdict: الصلاة المعروفة بصلاة الرغائب وهي ثنتا عشرة ركعة تصلى بين المغرب والعشاء ليلة أول جمعة في رجب، وصلاة ليلة نصف شعبان مائة ركعة، وهاتان الصلاتان بدعتان ومنكران قبيحتان "The prayer known as Ṣalāt al-Raghāʾib, twelve rakʿas prayed between Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ on the night of the first Friday of Rajab, and the prayer of the night of mid-Shaʿbān, a hundred rakʿas: these two prayers are innovations and ugly, reprehensible acts." al-Nawawī, al-Majmūʿ Sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab, 4/56 (Kitāb al-Ṣalāt, on voluntary prayers)[27](#src-27) He went on to warn readers not to be taken in by their appearance in respected devotional books, since the hadith behind them are baseless. That is a Shāfiʿī, writing in Damascus in the thirteenth century. Nobody can call this a modern Salafi objection. We even have a rough date for when the mid-Shaʿbān prayer became public. The Andalusian Mālikī Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūshī reports in al-Ḥawādith wa'l-bidaʿ that it was unknown in Jerusalem until 448 AH (around 1056 CE), when a man from Nablus known as Ibn Abī al-Ḥamrāʾ, a fine reciter, began it in al-Masjid al-Aqṣā. Others joined him, the crowd grew year on year, and it became established.[27](#src-27) Al-Ṭurṭūshī also cites Ibn Waḍḍāḥ's report that the Madinan scholars of his own time gave the night no special attention and did not consider it better than other nights. ## The first split: Syria and the Ḥijāz The clearest account of how the disagreement began is by the Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Rajab (d. 795 AH) in Laṭāʾif al-Maʿārif, his book on the seasons of the Muslim year. It is worth reading slowly, because both modern camps quote him and each tends to quote half. Ibn Rajab says the Successors of Syria, naming Khālid b. Maʿdān, Makḥūl and Luqmān b. ʿĀmir, used to honour the night and strive in worship during it, and that people took the idea of its virtue from them. He adds that it was said they had received Isrāʾīliyyāt on the subject, reports of Jewish or Christian origin. When this spread, he says, people differed. Many accepted it. But most of the scholars of the Ḥijāz rejected it, among them ʿAṭāʾ and Ibn Abī Mulayka, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Zayd b. Aslam reported the same from the jurists of Madina; it was also the view of Mālik's companions. They said it was all bidʿa, «ذلك كله بدعة».[25](#src-25) Among those in Syria who did honour the night, Ibn Rajab records two views. The first: that it is recommended to spend the night in worship together in the mosques. Khālid b. Maʿdān and Luqmān b. ʿĀmir would wear their best clothes, use incense and kohl and pray in the mosque, and Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh agreed with them on the congregational practice. The second: that gathering in the mosques for prayer, stories and supplication on this night is disliked, but it is not disliked for a person to pray privately on his own. This was the view of al-Awzāʿī, the imam of the Syrians, and Ibn Rajab's comment on it is short: «وهذا هو الأقرب إن شاء الله تعالى», "and this is the closest to correct, God willing."[25](#src-25) Ibn Rajab also states plainly that night prayer on this night is not established from the Prophet ﷺ or his Companions. So he is not endorsing a sunna. He is endorsing a permission: private worship, following a precedent from some of the Salaf, without the public trappings. ## The scholars in their own words ### Those who affirm the night's virtue **Ibn Taymiyya** (d. 728 AH). In Iqtiḍāʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm he writes that for the night of mid-Shaʿbān «روي في فضلها من الأحاديث المرفوعة والآثار ما يقتضي أنها ليلة مفضلة»: enough reports from the Prophet ﷺ and from the early generations have come down to indicate that it is a night of special merit, and some of the Salaf used to devote it to prayer (Iqtiḍāʾ, 2/136). In his fatwas he is more specific. If a person prays that night alone, or in a small private group, as some of the Salaf did, that is good. Gathering in the mosques for a fixed prayer, such as the hundred rakʿas with a thousand recitations of al-Ikhlāṣ, is an innovation that none of the imams recommended (Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, vol. 23, including 23/132).[26](#src-26) This is the passage people most often quote in halves. Those who favour the night quote the first sentence; those who oppose the Alfiyya quote the second. Ibn Taymiyya meant both. **Ibn Rajab** (d. 795 AH). As above: the night is honoured by a real strand of the early scholars; the prayer of the Prophet ﷺ on it is not established; the preferred view is al-Awzāʿī's, private worship without gathering (Laṭāʾif al-Maʿārif, the chapter on mid-Shaʿbān). **Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani** (Deobandi, Pakistan). In his short piece on Shaʿbān and Shab-e-Barāt he treats the night as one of special mercy and worship, and says that prayer, recitation and dhikr on it "should be performed in this night individually, not collectively." Visiting a graveyard is permissible but should not be done as if it were obligatory. The fast of the 15th he calls advisable as a voluntary fast, while stressing it is not an established sunna. Illuminations, fireworks and similar customs he describes as "baseless and innovated in the later days by ignorant people."[35](#src-35) Mawlana Muhammad Abdul Malek, writing from the same Deobandi tradition in Bangladesh's monthly Alkawsar, takes much the same line, adding that singling out the fast of the 15th specifically is something many scholars have forbidden.[37](#src-37) **Barelvi practice.** The Barelvi tradition, represented today by organisations such as Dawat-e-Islami, keeps the night more publicly. Dawat-e-Islami's centre in Karachi holds an all-night gathering: after Maghrib, six voluntary rakʿas with Sūrat Yā-Sīn and a special "Duʿāʾ-e-Niṣf-e-Shaʿbān", then ʿIshāʾ, recitation, a talk, supplication until Fajr, and suḥūr for those fasting.[38](#src-38) Yet the same tradition is emphatic about fireworks. Its fatwa department quotes Imam Aḥmad Riḍā Khān's Fatāwā Riḍawiyya that the fireworks set off at weddings and on Shab-e-Barāt are "undoubtedly Haram" (vol. 23, p. 279), on grounds of waste and harm.[39](#src-39) **Dar al-Iftāʾ of Egypt / Shaykh ʿAlī Jumʿa.** The former Grand Mufti of Egypt permits communal commemoration, including reciting Yā-Sīn three times after Maghrib in congregation, provided nobody treats it as obligatory. If it is treated as obligatory, he says, it becomes an innovation, because people would then be obliging what Allah and His Messenger did not.[40](#src-40) ### Those who reject singling it out **Shaykh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Ibn Bāz** (d. 1999). In his treatise on celebrating the night of mid-Shaʿbān he argues that whatever has not been shown by Sharīʿa evidence to be legislated may not be introduced into the religion: «كل شيء لم يثبت بالأدلة الشرعية كونه مشروعاً لم يجز للمسلم أن يحدثه في دين الله». He quotes Ibn Rajab's report of al-Awzāʿī's view on private prayer and calls it «غريب وضعيف», "strange and weak", because a practice without evidence is not made permissible by being done alone.[32](#src-32) **Shaykh Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿUthaymīn** (d. 2001). "Even with regard to the night of the fifteenth of Shaʿbān, there is no proof that the Messenger ever venerated it or spent that night in prayer." Celebrating it, he says, has no basis (Fatāwā Islāmiyya, 4/693, as quoted by IslamQA).[33](#src-33) **The Permanent Committee** (al-Lajna al-Dāʾima, Saudi Arabia): it is not permissible to hold celebrations on occasions such as the night of the fifteenth of Shaʿbān (Fatāwā al-Lajna al-Dāʾima, 2/257–258).[33](#src-33)[34](#src-34) Those in this camp often add an argument from analogy. Muslim records the Prophet ﷺ saying, «لاَ تَخْتَصُّوا لَيْلَةَ الْجُمُعَةِ بِقِيَامٍ مِنْ بَيْنِ اللَّيَالِي», "Do not single out the night of Friday from among the nights for prayer" ([Muslim 1144b](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1144b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com)).[16](#src-16) If the night before Friday, whose day is the best of the week, is not to be singled out, they argue, a night with only a disputed hadith should not be either. ### Al-Albānī, in the middle Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī is claimed by both sides, which tells you something. He is the scholar most responsible for the modern acceptance of the forgiveness hadith, which he called sound "without doubt" (*ṣaḥīḥ bi-lā rayb*) by its combined routes.[22](#src-22)[41](#src-41) He is also the one who graded Ibn Mājah 1388 fabricated and the ʿĀʾisha report weak, and he gave no support to the Alfiyya or to a special fast or prayer. His position, in effect, is that the night has a virtue Allah has described, and that nothing specific has been legislated for anyone to do in response. ## Shab-e-Barāt in South Asia In Pakistan, India and Bangladesh the night is called Shab-e-Barāt, from the Persian *shab* (night) and the Arabic *barāʾa*, meaning release or acquittal: the night of being freed from the Fire. Turkish Muslims call it Berat Kandili, and in the Malay world it is Nisfu Syaʿban. The customs vary, but a family from Lahore, Lucknow or Dhaka would recognise most of these: halwa and other sweets cooked and sent to neighbours and the poor; houses and mosques lit with lamps, candles and strings of lights; visits to the family graves, sometimes with flowers, candles and incense; children letting off fireworks; and an all-night round of prayer, often with a sermon, in the mosque.[44](#src-44)[38](#src-38) None of these, apart from prayer and giving food to the poor, has any textual connection to the night. The lamps and fireworks have been compared by South Asian scholars of every school to Hindu festival customs, though I have not found a reliable historical study that pins down where they came from, and I would treat confident origin stories with care. What is worth noticing is the degree of agreement: the Deobandi Taqi Usmani and Abdul Malek, the Barelvi fatwa of Aḥmad Riḍā Khān, and the Saudi scholars all condemn the fireworks.[35](#src-35)[37](#src-37)[39](#src-39)[33](#src-33) Sweets given as charity are generally treated as harmless in themselves; the objection is only when people believe a particular dish belongs to the night as a religious act. In Indonesia and Malaysia the best-known custom is a different one. After Maghrib on the night, congregations and families recite Sūrat Yāsīn three times, each recitation followed by a supplication: for a long life spent in obedience to Allah, for ample and blessed provision, and for firm faith and a good end. An article on the website of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), published on 12 February 2025, presents this as a recommended practice and not an obligation, and bases it on later Shāfiʿī works, *Iʿānat al-ṭālibīn* and the *Ḥāshiya* of al-Bājūrī, rather than on a hadith.[46](#src-46) It belongs, then, with the question of private worship on the night, and those who reject singling the night out reject it on the same grounds.[32](#src-32)[33](#src-33) ## The Shia fifteenth For Twelver Shia Muslims the 15th of Shaʿbān carries a further meaning. It is the birthday of the twelfth Imam, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Mahdī. Twelver sources place his birth in Samarra around 255 AH (868–869 CE), on 15 Shaʿbān,[43](#src-43) and it is marked as a festival: in Iran it is a public holiday, and streets are lit and decorated. It is therefore both a night of worship and a celebration of the awaited Imam, which is a different thing from the Sunni debates above, and should be described on its own terms. The recommended acts for the night in Shaykh ʿAbbās al-Qummī's Mafātīḥ al-Jinān, the standard Shia devotional manual, include a ritual bath (ghusl), spending the night awake in worship, the ziyāra (visitation prayer) of Imam al-Ḥusayn, which the manual calls the most excellent act of the night, supplications including Duʿāʾ Kumayl, particular voluntary prayers and glorifications, and prayers for the Mahdī's reappearance.[42](#src-42) These rest on reports from the Imams, especially al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq, within the Shia hadith tradition, which has its own standards of grading. Twelver jurists do not hold every such report to the standard needed for an obligation. For recommended acts many apply a principle called *tasāmuḥ fī adillat al-sunan*, leniency over the evidence for recommended acts, which rests on reports such as one from Imam al-Ṣādiq in al-Ṣadūq's *Thawāb al-aʿmāl*: whoever does a deed after learning of its reward will have that reward, even if the Prophet ﷺ did not say it.[51](#src-51) On that principle the acts are done in the hope that God wants them (*rajāʾ al-maṭlūbiyya*), not as established law: a scholar answering on Al-Islam.org puts it that one may do such a prayer in that hope but cannot say it is actually recommended, and only where the report does not go against the Qur'an and authentic traditions.[52](#src-52) For how the two traditions came to differ on sources, see [The House and the Schools](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-house-and-the-schools/). ## The questions, answered one by one | Question | Where the evidence stands | | ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Is the night virtuous? | Disputed. It rests entirely on the forgiveness hadith. Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Rajab, al-Albānī, the Deobandis and the Barelvis affirm a virtue; those who follow the hadith's critics do not. Ibn Bāz held that even a real virtue gives no licence to single the night out. | | A specific prayer? | No. The Alfiyya and similar set prayers rest on fabricated reports and are condemned by classical and modern scholars alike. Ordinary voluntary prayer is the separate, al-Awzāʿī question. | | Fasting the day? | Fasting in Shaʿbān is sunna. The 15th as a white day, Monday or Thursday is unobjectionable. As "the fast of mid-Shaʿbān" it depends on Ibn Mājah 1388, graded fabricated by al-Albānī and Darussalam, and weak rather than fabricated in Taqi Usmani's revised view. | | Gathering in the mosque? | Done by some Syrian Successors, disliked by al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Rajab and the Deobandis, rejected by the Ḥijāzīs and Saudi scholars, permitted by Barelvis and the Egyptian Dar al-Iftāʾ if not treated as obligatory. | | Visiting graves? | A sunna at any time ([Muslim 977a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:977a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com): "I forbade you to visit graves, but you may now visit them"). Tying it to this night rests on the weak Tirmidhī 739.[15](#src-15)[8](#src-8) | | Halwa, lights, fireworks? | No text connects them to the night. Food given to the poor is charity on any day. Fireworks are condemned across the schools. | **What rests on what.** The sound texts establish fasting much of Shaʿbān,[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12)[17](#src-17) the reason he ﷺ gave for it, that deeds are raised in that month (al-Nasāʾī 2357, ḥasan per Darussalam),[20](#src-20) fasting the white days of every month,[13](#src-13) the descent in the last third of every night,[9](#src-9) his night visits to al-Baqīʿ with no month named,[14](#src-14) and forgiveness held back from those nursing a grudge every Monday and Thursday.[18](#src-18) The virtue of this particular night rests on one hadith whose separate chains are weak (Ibn Mājah 1390); al-Albānī and others accept it by its combined routes, al-Dāraquṭnī and others do not.[6](#src-6)[22](#src-22)[31](#src-31) The report tying ʿĀʾisha's search at al-Baqīʿ to this night is weak, and "pray its night and fast its day" is graded fabricated.[8](#src-8)[5](#src-5)[4](#src-4)[24](#src-24) Nothing done specifically because it is this night is reported as something the Prophet ﷺ did or taught, as Ibn Rajab himself says.[25](#src-25) So the rest is reasoning. On one side, al-Awzāʿī's permission for private worship, which Ibn Rajab and Ibn Taymiyya adopt from the practice of some Syrian Successors.[25](#src-25)[26](#src-26) On the other, the Prophet's ﷺ words "every innovation is misguidance" (Muslim 867) and "whoever introduces into this affair of ours what is not of it, it is rejected" (al-Bukhārī 2697; Muslim 1718), on which Ibn Bāz and the Permanent Committee hold that singling the night out is itself the innovation.[47](#src-47)[48](#src-48)[32](#src-32)[33](#src-33) Those who allow more work with the older division of new practices into good and bad, which al-Bayhaqī reports from al-Shāfiʿī and which cites ʿUmar's "what an excellent innovation this is" over the congregational tarāwīḥ (al-Bukhārī 2010); Salafi scholars read ʿUmar's word as linguistic, since the Prophet ﷺ had led that prayer himself.[49](#src-49)[50](#src-50) ## What is agreed Line the camps up and a surprising amount is common ground. Nobody I have read claims that the Qur'an names the 15th of Shaʿbān. Nobody defends the hundred-rakʿa Alfiyya. Nobody claims Ibn Mājah 1388 is sound. Nobody says it is wrong to fast in Shaʿbān, and everyone knows the Prophet ﷺ fasted more in it than in any month besides Ramadan. Nobody says a person who habitually prays at night should stop on this night. And every school I looked at, Deobandi, Barelvi, Saudi and the classical Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī authorities, criticises fireworks and the treatment of these customs as religion. What remains is a genuine, old, respectable disagreement about one thing: whether an individual Muslim may give this night extra private worship because of the forgiveness hadith. That disagreement goes back to the Successors. People on both sides of it are following scholars of the first rank, though whether it is a legitimate difference is itself disputed: Ibn Bāz called al-Awzāʿī's permission for private worship "strange and weak".[32](#src-32) ### At a glance: practice by practice The same ground as the table above, sorted by where each practice stands. Use the buttons to narrow it down. AllAgreedDisputedNo sound basisTwelver Shia | Practice | Where it stands | Why | | ---------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Fasting often in Shaʿbān | Agreed | Sunna. The Prophet ﷺ fasted more in Shaʿbān than in any month besides Ramadan.[11](#src-11)[12](#src-12) | | Keeping up your usual night prayer on this night | Agreed | Nobody asks a person who habitually prays at night to stop on this one. | | Making up with someone you have fallen out with | Agreed | Commanded in far stronger texts, such as the Monday and Thursday hadith in Muslim.[18](#src-18) | | Visiting graves | Agreed, on any day | A sunna at any time. Tying it to this night rests on the weak Tirmidhī 739.[15](#src-15)[8](#src-8) | | Sweets and food given to the poor | Agreed, as charity | Charity on any day. The objection is only to treating a dish as part of the night's religion. | | Extra private worship on the night | Disputed | Affirmed by Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Rajab and the Deobandis; singling the night out is itself rejected by Ibn Bāz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and the Permanent Committee.[26](#src-26)[25](#src-25)[32](#src-32)[33](#src-33) | | Gathering in the mosque for the night | Disputed | Done by some Syrian Successors, disliked by al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Rajab and the Deobandis, rejected by Saudi scholars, allowed by Barelvis and Egypt's Dar al-Iftāʾ if not treated as obligatory.[25](#src-25)[33](#src-33)[40](#src-40) | | Yāsīn three times after Maghrib (Malay world) | Disputed | Recommended in later Shāfiʿī manuals; no hadith is cited for it.[46](#src-46) | | A special fast because it is the 15th | No sound basis | Rests on Ibn Mājah 1388, graded fabricated. Fasting the day as one of the white days, or as a Monday or Thursday, is fine.[4](#src-4)[29](#src-29)[13](#src-13) | | Ṣalāt al-Alfiyya and other set prayers | Rejected on every side | Built on fabricated reports; al-Nawawī called it a reprehensible innovation.[27](#src-27)[28](#src-28) | | Fireworks | Rejected on every side | Condemned by Deobandi, Barelvi and Saudi scholars alike.[35](#src-35)[37](#src-37)[39](#src-39)[33](#src-33) | | Birthday of the Twelfth Imam, al-Mahdī | Twelver Shia | Celebrated as a festival; Twelver sources place his birth on 15 Shaʿbān, around 255 AH.[43](#src-43) | | Ghusl, vigil, ziyāra of Imam al-Ḥusayn, Duʿāʾ Kumayl | Twelver Shia | Recommended in Mafātīḥ al-Jinān, resting on reports from the Imams, which Shia scholarship grades by its own standards.[42](#src-42) | ## A simple test As with the Mawlid, it helps to test an actual observance, the one your family or mosque holds, rather than argue about the label. Three questions: 1. **Is the night believed to be specially legislated, with a set prayer?** If people believe there is a prescribed number of rakʿas, a required sūra count, or a fast that is a sunna because it is the 15th, the observance has moved from permission into invented law. If not, it is inside the space the scholars disagree about. 2. **Does the gathering include forbidden content or fabricated narrations?** A sermon built on the "pray its night and fast its day" report, promises of reward taken from the Alfiyya literature, fireworks, wasteful spending or mixing that would be objectionable any other night: if yes, that part is wrong on every view. 3. **Does it displace an obligation?** If people stay up until Fajr and then sleep through it, skip work or school they are obliged to attend, or spend money they owe elsewhere, the observance has cost more than it gives. If not, the question has passed. An observance that passes all three is left with the question the scholars actually dispute: Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Rajab and the Deobandis allow private worship on the night, while Ibn Bāz, Ibn ʿUthaymīn and the Permanent Committee hold that singling it out is itself the innovation.[26](#src-26)[25](#src-25)[32](#src-32)[33](#src-33) One that fails any of them has a problem that even the night's defenders recognise. ### One thing that needs no ijtihād Whatever you conclude about the night, two things need no scholar's permission. The first is fasting in Shaʿbān, which the Prophet ﷺ did more than in any month outside Ramadan, and for a reason he gave himself: deeds are raised in it, and he wanted his to be raised while he was fasting. The second comes from inside the forgiveness hadith itself. The one person it names as left out, besides the idolater, is the one holding enmity against a fellow Muslim. If there is a relative you have not spoken to in years, a neighbour you avoid, a colleague you have written off, the most secure act of the night may be to pick up the phone before it arrives. That holds whether or not you accept the hadith, because reconciling with a brother or sister is commanded elsewhere, and in far stronger texts, among them the Monday and Thursday hadith in Muslim quoted above.[18](#src-18) ## Terms Laylat al-Niṣf min Shaʿbān The night of the middle of Shaʿbān; the evening before 15 Shaʿbān. Laylat al-Barāʾa / Shab-e-Barāt "The night of release (from the Fire)"; the common name in South Asia, Persia and Turkey (Berat Kandili). Mushāḥin One who harbours rancour or a quarrel against another Muslim; excluded from the forgiveness in the hadith. Ṣalāt al-Alfiyya The "prayer of the thousand": 100 rakʿas with Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ recited ten times in each. Based on fabricated reports. Ṣalāt al-Raghāʾib A 12-rakʿa prayer on the first Friday night of Rajab; condemned with the Alfiyya by al-Nawawī. Ḍaʿīf / Mawḍūʿ Weak / fabricated: grades for hadith whose chains fail, the second far more severely. Ṣaḥīḥ bi-majmūʿ ṭuruqihi "Sound by the sum of its routes": a hadith whose separate chains are each weak, judged strong enough together. Ayyām al-bīḍ "The white days": the 13th, 14th and 15th of each lunar month, recommended for fasting. Bidʿa An innovation in religion; a practice treated as worship without a basis in the Sharīʿa. **Spotted a mistake, or know a better source?** I check and correct these pages when readers point things out. Please email [mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com](mailto:mohammad.siddiqui@icloud.com?subject=Correction%3A%20The%2015th%20of%20Sha%CA%BFb%C4%81n%3A%20What%20the%20Texts%20Say) with the passage, what you think is wrong, and your source (Qur'an reference, hadith with collection and number, or a book with page). ## Sources **Primary texts** (all hadith checked on sunnah.com; gradings as stated above) 1. Qur'an 44:1–8, [quran.com](https://quran.com/44/1-8?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 2. Qur'an [2:185](https://quran.com/2/185?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [97:1](https://quran.com/97/1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), quran.com. 3. Ibn Kathīr, *Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm* on 44:3, [full Arabic text](https://quran.ksu.edu.sa/tafseer/katheer/sura44-aya3.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (King Saud University Qur'an project), including his rejection of the ʿIkrima reading and his note that the ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad report is mursal; [English abridgement](https://quran.com/en/44:3/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) on quran.com. 4. Ibn Mājah [1388](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1388?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ʿAlī; graded mawḍūʿ by Darussalam; chain through Ibn Abī Sabra). 5. Ibn Mājah [1389](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1389?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ʿĀʾisha; graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam). 6. Ibn Mājah [1390](https://sunnah.com/ibnmajah:1390?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Abū Mūsā; graded ḍaʿīf by Darussalam). 7. al-Tirmidhī [738](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:738?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ per al-Tirmidhī; ṣaḥīḥ per Darussalam), with al-Tirmidhī's explanation. 8. al-Tirmidhī [739](https://sunnah.com/tirmidhi:739?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ḍaʿīf per Darussalam), with al-Tirmidhī's report of al-Bukhārī's criticism. 9. al-Bukhārī [1145](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1145?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (the descent every night in the last third). 10. al-Bukhārī [1914](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1914?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 11. al-Bukhārī [1969](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1969?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 12. al-Bukhārī [1970](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1970?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 13. al-Bukhārī [1981](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:1981?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and its chapter heading on the 13th, 14th and 15th. 14. Muslim [974a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:974a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (night visits to al-Baqīʿ). 15. Muslim [977a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:977a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 16. Muslim [1144b](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1144b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 17. Muslim [1156b](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1156b?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 18. Muslim [2565a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:2565a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (forgiveness on Mondays and Thursdays, except those with rancour). 19. Abū Dāwūd [2337](https://sunnah.com/abudawud:2337?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ṣaḥīḥ per al-Albānī), with Abū Dāwūd's note on Aḥmad. 20. al-Nasāʾī [2357](https://sunnah.com/nasai:2357?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ḥasan per Darussalam). 21. Ibn Ḥibbān, *al-Iḥsān fī Taqrīb Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān*, ed. Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, 12/481 (no. 5665); the chapter "dhikr maghfirat Allāh ... fī laylat al-niṣf min Shaʿbān" is on [IslamWeb's library](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/library/content/314/5671/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 22. al-Albānī, *Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ṣaḥīḥa*, no. 1144, [text of his discussion and grading](https://surahquran.com/Hadith-126692.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (ṣaḥīḥ bi-majmūʿ ṭuruqihi). 23. al-Albānī, *Ṣaḥīḥ al-Jāmiʿ*, no. 771 (Abū Thaʿlaba al-Khushanī, ḥasan), [Dorar hadith encyclopedia](https://dorar.net/h/t3yFDQRJ?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 24. al-Albānī, *Silsilat al-Aḥādīth al-Ḍaʿīfa*, no. 2132, as cited in [IslamWeb fatwa 11483](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/11483/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). **Classical and modern scholarship** 1. Ibn Rajab al-Ḥanbalī, *Laṭāʾif al-Maʿārif*, chapter on mid-Shaʿbān, [al-Maktaba al-Shāmila](https://shamela.ws/book/11363/133?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 2. Ibn Taymiyya, *Iqtiḍāʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm* 2/136, and *Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā* vol. 23; summaries at [HadithAnswers](https://hadithanswers.com/ibn-taymiyyahs-rahimahullah-view-regarding-the-15th-of-shaban/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [IslamWeb 424513](https://www.islamweb.net/en/fatwa/424513/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 3. al-Nawawī, *al-Majmūʿ Sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab* 4/56; al-Ṭurṭūshī, *al-Ḥawādith wa'l-bidaʿ*; Ibn al-Jawzī, *al-Mawḍūʿāt*; as reviewed by [Salaf Center](https://salafcenter.org/7391/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) and [Al Jazeera Blogs](https://www.aljazeera.net/blogs/2023/3/6/%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B5%D9%81-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A3%D8%AD%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%88%D9%81%D8%B6%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%84?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Arabic), 6 March 2023. 4. IslamWeb Fatwa Centre, [no. 11483](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/11483/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com): the reports on the night, the ʿIkrima and ʿUthmān b. Muḥammad reports, Aḥmad on Ibn Abī Sabra, and Ibn al-ʿArabī's verdict. 5. IslamWeb Fatwa Centre, [no. 66295](https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/66295/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (grading of Ibn Mājah 1388). 6. On Ibn Abī Sabra: [HadithAnswers](https://hadithanswers.com/the-status-of-the-hadith-narrator-ibn-abi-sabrah/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), citing *Tahdhīb al-Kamāl*, *Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl* and *Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb*. 7. IslamQA, [answer 49678](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/49678?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), on the descent on mid-Shaʿbān, quoting al-Dāraquṭnī, *al-ʿIlal* 6/50–51. 8. Ibn Bāz, *Ḥukm al-iḥtifāl bi-laylat al-niṣf min Shaʿbān*, [IslamHouse](https://islamhouse.com/read/ar/%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%A8%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D8%B5%D9%81-%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86-2806003?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 9. Ibn ʿUthaymīn, *Fatāwā Islāmiyya* 4/693, and the Permanent Committee, *Fatāwā al-Lajna al-Dāʾima* 2/257–258, quoted at [IslamQA 154183](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/154183?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 10. [IslamQA 8907](https://islamqa.info/en/answers/8907?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), on celebrating the 15th of Shaʿbān. 11. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, [The month of Shaʿbān](https://muftitaqiusmani.com/en/the-month-of-shaban/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 12. Muhammad Taqi Usmani, [revised opinion on the fast of the 15th](https://annoor.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/the-fast-of-15th-shaban-revised-opinion-of-hazrat-mufti-taqi-usmani-db/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 13. Muhammad Abdul Malek, [Shaʿbān and Shab-e-Barat amidst exaggeration and underestimation](https://www.alkawsar.com/en/article/1547/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), Monthly Alkawsar. 14. Dawat-e-Islami, [Shab-e-Baraat congregation](https://www.dawateislami.net/activities/en/shab-e-baraat-congregation?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 15. Dar-ul-Ifta Ahl-e-Sunnat, [fireworks at weddings and Shab-e-Barat](https://www.fatwaqa.com/en/fatawa/halal-haram/letting-off-fireworks-on-the-occasion-of-a-wedding-and-shab-e-barat?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), citing *Fatāwā Riḍawiyya* 23/279. 16. ʿAlī Jumʿa, [Shaʿbān: one scholarly perspective](https://www.virtualmosque.com/islam-studies/hot-topics/shaban-one-scholarly-perspective-by-dr-ali-gooma/?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), Virtual Mosque. 17. Aḥmad al-Ḥaddād, ["Faḍīlat laylat al-niṣf min Shaʿbān"](https://www.emaratalyoum.com/opinion/2011-07-15-1.409913?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), *Emarat Al Youm*, 15 July 2011, quoting al-Albānī's "ṣaḥīḥ bi-lā rayb". 18. Shaykh ʿAbbās al-Qummī, *Mafātīḥ al-Jinān*, acts of the 15th night of Shaʿbān, [duas.org](https://www.duas.org/15shabanamalmafatih.htm?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 19. Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi, ["The Twelfth Imam: Muhammad al-Mahdi"](https://al-islam.org/islam-faith-practice-history-sayyid-muhammad-rizvi/lesson-18-twelfth-imam-muhammad-al-mahdi?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), *Islam: Faith, Practice and History*, Al-Islam.org (birth on 15 Shaʿbān 255 AH, Samarra). 20. "Muhammad al-Mahdi", [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%5Fal-Mahdi?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (citing Momen, Modarressi); "Mid-Shaʿban" and "Shab-e-Barat", [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Sha%27ban?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com), for regional names and customs. 21. Calendar: Umm al-Qurā conversion for 15 Shaʿbān 1448 AH (Saturday 23 January 2027), subject to local moon sighting. 22. Majelis Ulama Indonesia, "Baca Surat Yasin 3 Kali Setelah Shalat Magrib pada Malam Nisfu Syaʿban, Apa Hukumnya?", 12 February 2025, citing *Iʿānat al-ṭālibīn* 1/263 and *Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī*: [mui.or.id](https://mui.or.id/baca/berita/baca-surat-yasin-3-kali-setelah-shalat-magrib-pada-malam-nisfu-syaban-apa-hukumnya?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com) (Indonesian). 23. Muslim 867a, Jābir, from the Friday sermon: "every innovation is misguidance". In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ: [sunnah.com/muslim:867a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:867a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 24. al-Bukhārī 2697 and Muslim 1718a, ʿĀʾisha: "whoever introduces into this affair of ours what is not of it, it is rejected". In both Ṣaḥīḥs: [sunnah.com/bukhari:2697](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2697?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com); [sunnah.com/muslim:1718a](https://sunnah.com/muslim:1718a?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 25. IslamQA (Arabic), answer 300961, on al-Shāfiʿī's division of new matters into praised and blameworthy, quoting al-Bayhaqī, *Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī* 1/469, with the Salafi reading of it as linguistic: [islamqa.info](https://islamqa.info/ar/answers/300961?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 26. al-Bukhārī 2010, ʿUmar on the congregational tarāwīḥ: "what an excellent innovation this is". In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ: [sunnah.com/bukhari:2010](https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2010?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 27. al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq, *Thawāb al-aʿmāl wa-ʿiqāb al-aʿmāl*, chapter "Reward of performing a deed after knowing its reward", hadith 1 (Hishām b. Ṣafwān from Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣādiq): [thaqalayn.net](https://thaqalayn.net/hadith/23/2/271/1?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 28. Mohammed Al-Hilli, "Is Salah of Laylat al-Raghaib (Night of Wishes) Authentic? Should We Pray it?", Al-Islam.org (weak reports acted on with the intention of *rajāʾ*; the narration of Imam al-Ṣādiq on the reward; the condition that the report not contradict the Qur'an and authentic traditions): [al-islam.org](https://al-islam.org/node/100397?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). 29. Sunan Ibn Mājah 1388 with al-Sindī's commentary (*Ḥāshiyat al-Sindī*), quoting al-Būṣīrī's *Zawāʾid* (*Miṣbāḥ al-zujāja*): "its chain is weak because of the weakness of Ibn Abī Sabra", of whom Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn said he fabricated hadith: [hadithprophet.com](https://hadithprophet.com/hadith-42706.html?ref=mohammadsiddiqui.com). Related reading - [The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-quran/), on how the text was revealed and preserved - [Muhammad ﷺ: A Life](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/prophet-muhammad/), from Mecca to Medina, with a timeline and family tree - [The Islamic Calendar and Its Sacred Days](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/islamic-calendar/), which dates matter, and why mosques disagree - [Ramadan and Fasting in Australia](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/ramadan/), including why Sydney mosques start on different days - [The Mawlid Sourcebook](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/the-mawlid-sourcebook-2/), the verses, hadith and scholars on each side - [The Mawlid, Session by Session](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/msl-lmwld-lnbwy/), both sides argued from the texts - [How a Hadith Is Judged](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/how-a-hadith-is-judged/), what ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan and ḍaʿīf mean - [The People Behind the Hadith: Narrators, Chains and How They Were Judged](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-narrators-and-chains/), including the Ibn Lahīʿa chain in Ibn Mājah 1390 - [Every Hadith on This Site: An Index](https://www.mohammadsiddiqui.com/deen/hadith-index/), each report quoted here, with its grade