The Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) guidance in Ramadan and sleeping after the Fajr prayer

The questioner : All right. A questioner says: It has become common in our time to sleep after the Fajr prayer and to stay up late at night. What is your opinion on this practice? May Allah reward you with good. And what was the guidance of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding this?

The Shaykh : Yes, there is no doubt that what people are doing today, in this year and the years before it, is spending the nights of Ramadan on things that are not beneficial. I mean, they are not staying up to recite the Qur’an or to pray or the like. Most of them stay up doing idle talk that has no benefit, and some of them stay up doing something forbidden, such as listening to songs or playing forbidden games or the like. Then, during the day, they sleep from the time they pray Fajr until it is time for the Zuhr prayer. There is no doubt that this is a deprivation, a great deprivation. What a person should do is sleep at night as much as he wishes and stay up at night. If he limits himself to praying tarawih with the imam until he finishes, then he is as if he has stayed up the whole night, or rather, he has indeed stayed up the whole night, based on the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) . On this basis, he sleeps after tarawih until it is time for the suhur meal, then he gets up and eats suhur. During the day, he worships Allah. If he is an employee or has a job, he does what is obligatory for him in his work. If he is free, let him worship Allah the Exalted with various types of worship. He should seclude himself in the mosque for two or three days for recitation and prayer. He will find it difficult on the first day and the second day, but after that it will become a habit for him, his heart will find peace in it, and his chest will open up to it. As for the guidance of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) in Ramadan, there is no doubt that he did not spend it except in matters that bring one closer to Allah. Jibril would come to him at night to review the Qur’an with him. Every year he reviewed it with him only once. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would review the entire month’s portion with him once, except in the year he died, when he reviewed it with him twice.