Lesson 1 of 6 · What is actually wrong with your nights
Sleep is given a purpose in the text, not treated as lost time
Worth setting down at the start, because a lot of Muslim material treats sleep as the thing subtracted from worship.
The Qur'an does not treat it that way. Sleep is described as rest, the night is described as a covering, the day is set against both of them for your livelihood, and your sleeping by night and by day is listed among the signs. It is given a function, and a good one. That framing does real work later in this course, because it means protecting your sleep is not a concession you are extracting from your religion.
A classical handbook goes further than framing. Ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi, in Mukhtasar Minhaj al-Qasidin, counts sleep itself among the awrad, the ordered portions of devotion that a person keeps through the night. The sentence runs across two sections as the text is stored, with a section marker falling inside it.
الورد الرابع: النوم، وإنما عددناه من الأوراد، لأنه إذا روعيت آدابه وحسن المقصود به احتسب عبادة. وقد قال معاذ رضى الله عنه: إني لأحتسب في نومتى كما أحتسب في قومتى.
Our rendering, and it is a rendering rather than a published translation: the fourth litany is sleep, and we counted it among the litanies only because, when its proprieties are observed and the intention behind it is good, it is reckoned as an act of worship. And Mu'adh, may Allah be pleased with him, said: I seek reward in my sleeping as I seek reward in my standing.
Al-Ghazali says the same in the Ihya.
الورد الثالث النوم ولا بأس أن يعد ذلك في الأوراد فإنه إذا روعيت آدابه احتسب عبادة
Our rendering: the third litany is sleep, and there is no harm in counting that among the litanies, for when its proprieties are observed it is reckoned as worship.
So this is not a modern accommodation made for tired people. It is a handbook of devotions putting sleep on the list of devotions, giving the reason, and handing the sentence to a Companion.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Sleep is described here as rest. It is given a function, and a good one, rather than being treated as the thing subtracted from worship, which is how a lot of Muslim material handles it.
وَجَعَلۡنَا نَوۡمَكُمۡ سُبَاتࣰ ا
give you sleep for rest
Qur’an 78:9
And the night, in the same passage, is described as a covering. It is named as something made for you, which is the opposite of treating the hours you spend in it as hours lost.
وَجَعَلۡنَا ٱلَّيۡلَ لِبَاسࣰ ا
the night as a cover
Qur’an 78:10
And the day is set against both of them for your livelihood. Three clauses of one passage, each giving sleep and the night a purpose, which is why protecting your sleep is not a concession you are extracting from your religion.
وَجَعَلۡنَا ٱلنَّهَارَ مَعَاشࣰ ا
and the day for your livelihood
Qur’an 78:11
The same framing said again in a second place. It is not one stray verse, which matters because everything here rests on sleep having a function rather than being an absence of worship.
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلَّيۡلَ لِبَاسࣰ ا وَٱلنَّوۡمَ سُبَاتࣰ ا وَجَعَلَ ٱلنَّهَارَ نُشُورࣰ ا
It is He who made the night a garment for you, and sleep a rest, and made the day like a resurrection
Qur’an 25:47
Your sleeping by night and by day is listed among the signs. That is the strongest form of the point: not tolerated, not excused, but named as something to notice about how you were made.
وَمِنۡ ءَايَٰتِهِۦ مَنَامُكُم بِٱلَّيۡلِ وَٱلنَّهَارِ وَٱبۡتِغَآؤُكُم مِّن فَضۡلِهِۦٓۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَأٓيَٰتࣲ لِّقَوۡمࣲ يَسۡمَعُونَ
Among His signs are your sleep, by night and by day, and your seeking His bounty. There truly are signs in this for those who can hear
Qur’an 30:23
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.