How Many Rakats in Each Prayer?

Rakat at a Glance

This table shows fard (obligatory) rakat and the confirmed (mu’akkadah) sunnah rakat prayed before and after each fard. Items marked * are recommended in some madhhabs but not universally confirmed — see the notes and the per-prayer sections below.

* The Hanafi school additionally recommends 4 rakat (ghayr mu’akkadah, not confirmed sunnah) before Asr and before Isha. Other schools don’t treat these as established sunnah in the same way.

Fajr: How Many Rakats?

Fajr has 2 fard rakat, prayed out loud (jahriyyah). Before the fard, 2 confirmed sunnah rakat are prayed — a hadith describes these two rakat as better than the world and everything in it, so they’re rarely skipped even when short on time.

Dhuhr: How Many Rakats?

Dhuhr has 4 fard rakat, prayed silently. The widely-known sunnah pattern is 4 confirmed rakat before the fard and 2 confirmed rakat after — part of the 12-rakat daily sunnah mentioned in hadith.

Asr: How Many Rakats?

Asr has 4 fard rakat, prayed silently, with no confirmed sunnah attached to it in most schools. The Hanafi school is the main exception: it recommends (but does not treat as confirmed) 4 rakat before the Asr fard.

Maghrib: How Many Rakats?

Maghrib has 3 fard rakat — the only obligatory prayer with an odd number of fard rakat, prayed out loud for the first two. It’s followed by 2 confirmed sunnah rakat.

Isha: How Many Rakats?

Isha has 4 fard rakat, prayed out loud, followed by 2 confirmed sunnah rakat, and then Witr (see below).

Witr: How Many Rakats and How to Pray It

Witr is prayed after Isha, in an odd number of rakat — most commonly 3, though scholars also describe 1, 5, 7, 9 or 11.

How you pray those 3 rakat differs by madhhab. The Hanafi school treats Witr as wajib and prays all 3 rakat joined together in one unit, with a tashahhud after the second rakah (like Maghrib) before standing for the third, then a final tashahhud and salam — with qunut recited in the third rakah. The Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanbali schools consider Witr a strongly confirmed sunnah (not obligatory), and more commonly pray it as 2 rakat followed by a separate single rakah, rather than joining all three together.

Taraweeh: 8 or 20 Rakats?

This is one of the most-asked questions about Ramadan prayer, and both numbers are legitimately practiced today.

8 rakat (plus 3 Witr, totalling 11) is based on a hadith of Aisha (Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim) describing the Prophet ﷺ’s night prayer, in Ramadan and outside it, as not exceeding 11 rakat — though each rakah was prayed at length. 20 rakat reflects the practice later established under Umar ibn al-Khattab, when the congregation was gathered behind a single imam, and this became the more widespread congregational practice across much of the Muslim world, especially in the Hanafi and Shafi’i traditions.

Neither number is “more valid” than the other — they reflect different, well-established strands of practice. Many people simply follow what their local mosque or madhhab observes.

Duha: How Many Rakats?

Duha (also called Ishraq) is prayed after sunrise, once the sun has fully risen, until just before the sun reaches its zenith. The minimum is generally said to be 2 rakat, most commonly prayed as 4, and some narrations mention higher counts such as 8 — a narration mentioning 12 rakat is also cited by some, though many scholars grade it as weak. It’s a flexible, recommended (nafl) prayer rather than a fixed obligation.

Tahajjud / Qiyam al-Layl: How Many Rakats?

Tahajjud (night prayer) has no fixed count — it’s prayed in sets of 2 rakat, for as long as you’re able, then closed with Witr if you haven’t already prayed it. As noted above, the Prophet ﷺ’s own night prayer is described as not exceeding 11 rakat total, though this reflects his personal practice rather than an upper limit for everyone.

Keeping Count Without Losing Your Focus

Whether it’s a quick 2 rakat of Duha or 20 rakat of Taraweeh, the challenge is the same: staying present in the prayer instead of counting in your head. Prayer Memory gives you a silent haptic pulse on Apple Watch, or a simple tap counter on your phone, so you always know where you are.