Wird (litanies and daily devotional portions)

وِرْد

Wird (plural awrad) is, in the lexicon, a fixed portion of recitation or other practice; in the technical sense it is what a person sets himself each day or night as a regular act. ¹² The related term hizb is a practice a person keeps up, such as prayer or recitation, and its technical sense does not depart from the lexical one. ² Al-Ghazali treats the awrad as the path to meeting God, since love and intimacy come only from constant remembrance, which in turn needs leaving worldly concerns to what is necessary. ² The virtue of remembrance is supported by Qur'an passages in several surahs (al-Ahzab, al-Ankabut, al-Nisa', al-Baqara) and by a hadith on those who go ahead by remembering God often; Ibn Abbas explains remembrance as practised after prayers, on going to sleep and on leaving home. ²³ Because the soul tires of one kind of act, varying the awrad keeps them pleasant and sustained. ³ Prayer is the best of the awrad, and half of its right is the outward and inward work; six inward acts are to be observed in it: presence of heart, understanding, reverence, awe, hope and modesty. ⁴⁵ Attending the congregation in the nearest mosque, in the first row, and without worldly talk is recommended. ⁴ Recitation of the Qur'an is the best remembrance, and its amount varies with the reader: a man busy with teaching or judging keeps to what does not disturb his work, and others recite as much as they can without tiring. ⁵⁶ The Qur'an is divided into seven portions by length; the division is reported through a report from Aws ibn Hudhayfa, which Ibn Abd al-Barr judged not firmly established. ⁶ Transmitted supplications and remembrances belong to the awrad, while devising remembrances unsupported by the Book and the sunna is to be avoided; al-Sha'rani records a covenant to that effect, and Ibn Allan reports from al-Nawawi that the practices of the shaykhs may be followed where they do not depart from the transmitted. ⁷⁸ The principle is constancy: a small act done regularly is loved by God, while an act abandoned loses its effect. ⁸⁹ The seven daytime awrad run from dawn to sunset: first the supplication, remembrance, recitation and reflection after the dawn prayer, then the forenoon prayer, then work and a midday rest, then the prayer after noon, then Qur'an reflection in the afternoon, and finally glorification and seeking forgiveness until sunset. ^9101112 The night awrad include the voluntary prayers between maghrib and isha, the recitation of transmitted surahs and the witr before sleep, moderate sleep, the night prayer in the later part of the night, and seeking forgiveness at dawn. ¹³¹⁴ The awrad vary with the state of the person: the devotee gives his time to worship and recitation; the scholar to teaching and writing; the student to learning; the ruler gives the needs of Muslims precedence over his own awrad; the craftsman joins remembrance to his work and gives away what he does not need; and one absorbed in love of God moves according to what his practice calls for. ¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷ A missed wird should be made up, and a sound report says that whoever sleeps through his night portion and reads it between dawn and noon is credited as if he read it at night. ¹⁷ Certain months, days and nights are given extra merit for devotion, and the entry refers the detail to other headwords. ¹⁷