Does abandoning the night prayer for the sake of seeking knowledge fall under the prohibition?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : He may stand in prayer at the end of the night, but he has left off the night prayer; he does not find the time for seeking knowledge in the first part of the night. Does this fall under the saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) Sunan Ibn Majah 1331Sahih (Darussalam) regarding prayer?
The Shaykh : Which is better, knowledge or tahajjud? So he is leaving something less preferred for something more preferred, but it is possible for him to do both. That is, he should not overburden himself in the first part of the night, nor should he overburden himself in the last part of the night either. He should do a little of this and a little of that, and the matter is easy. For example, if he advances by half an hour before Fajr, he will be able to pray what Allah wills along with the witr.
Do not be like so-and-so, who used to
لا تكن مثل فلان، كان يقومThe Shaykh : Which is better, knowledge or tahajjud? So he is leaving something less preferred for something more preferred, but it is possible for him to do both. That is, he should not overburden himself in the first part of the night, nor should he overburden himself in the last part of the night either. He should do a little of this and a little of that, and the matter is easy. For example, if he advances by half an hour before Fajr, he will be able to pray what Allah wills along with the witr.
Source
الفتاوى الثلاثية (2) - 2 — binothaimeen.net (13:17)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.