Crying in Witr

When praying taraweeh or tahajjud in the Masjid, a trend that I have noticed is that many people cry during the du’aa in witr. Crying when asking Allah for something is virtuous and is one of the methods that helps in acceptance of du’aa as we are humbling ourselves in front of Allah and showing our urgent need for His help. However, I would like to point out something which may have been overlooked by some. We stand for (at least) 8 rak’aat in which many pages of the Qur’an are being read in front of us before we pray witr, but we don’t end up crying until we pray witr and the imam makes the du’aa?

In the Salah, the imam is reciting the Qur’an, which consists of the words of Allah, and in the du’aa he is supplicating using his own words, yet we seem to be more affected by the words of man than the words of Allah? As I said before, it is a good thing to cry before Allah when asking for something, but do you not feel ashamed to cry before Allah when asking Him for something when you do not cry when the Qur’an is recited before you? If you are someone that cries when hearing certain verses of the Qur’an, and cries in witr then alhamdulillah that’s good, but if you are not, then maybe something needs to change.

An example to show what I mean is that a few days ago, I was praying taraweeh in the Masjid and the imam recited the end of Surah Al-Imran, and throughout the whole salah I did not hear any crying. When he began making du’aa in the witr salah, I heard a number of people crying. The reason why I felt something was missing is that the ending of Surah Al-Imran has many powerful verses which seek someone to contemplate and fear Allah. It even contains a few du’aas i.e.{Oh Allah forgive our sins, and wipe away our wrongdoings} [Al-Imran:193] {Oh allah give us what you promised us through your messengers and do not disgrace us on the day of judgement}[Al-Imran: 194]. These du’aas are very effective ones that should emotionally move a person and cause him to cry, yet I heard no cries when he recited these verses which are the words of Allah, but I heard cries when he made du’aa which is the words of man.

I understand many people do not understand Arabic so they say they cannot understand the Qur’an and therefore are not moved by it. If that is the case then firstly, you should try your best to learn Arabic because you can never appreciate the beauty of the Qur’an without understanding it in Arabic, and secondly, even if you don’t understand it, you can try and make yourself cry, just like many non-Arabs who I hear crying during the du’aa in witr, which is also in Arabic. Some of the salaf used to say “Cry from the fear of Allah, and if you don’t cry then forcefully cry”

One of the reasons for the revelation of the Qur’an is for it to be contemplated, and Allah has mentioned this in many verses in the Qur’an.
{A blessed book which We have brought down to you so that they may ponder upon its verses} [Saad: 29]
{Do they not ponder upon the Qur’an?} [Al- Nisaa’:82]
{Do they not ponder upon the Qur’an? Or do they have lock on their hearts?} [Muhammad: 24]
{The people of knowledge before it, if its (The Qur’an’s) verses are recited to them, they fall on their necks in prostration. And They say, Glory be to our Lord, for His promise was true. And they fall on their necks crying, and it (The Qur’an) increases them in khushoo’ (concentration and humility before their Lord)} [Al-Israa’:107-109]

On the topic of crying, I’m not going to write something really long about the etiquettes of crying, but I just want to remind everyone that when you cry loudly and start wailing, you disturb others around you, and from my limited knowledge, I haven’t come across a narration that the prophet (peace be upon him) or his companions used to cry like that. I have only come across narrations of how they used to hide their tears when crying and if they were seen to be crying, then it is just merely heavy breathing or tears tolling down their eyes e.g. the narration of when Abdullah bin Mas’ood recited to the prophet (peace be upon him) surah Al-Nisaa’, and when he reached verse 41, the prophet (peace be upon him) told him to stop, and when he looked up, he saw tears rolling down the prophet’s (peace be upon him) blessed face (Reported in Bukhari). He did not know that the prophet (peace be upon him) was crying until he looked at his face.

To conclude, I’m not saying it is wrong to cry during the du’aa in witr because it is in fact a good thing to do as it helps in acceptance in du’aa. What I’m saying is that if you find yourself crying in witr and not during the recitation of the Qur’an then you need to question your love and connection to the words of Allah, and if you are not crying in witr or during the recitation of the Qur’an then you need to question your heart!!

Wallahu A’lam