Laylatul Qadr Prayer Plan and Dua Checklist

Assalam alaykum!

I hope you are feeling incredible today and if you’re not, I pray that before the hour runs out Allah azzawajal gives you a thousand reasons to put that beautiful smile of yours back on your face.

I would first like to say alhamdulilah for the gift of life and the opportunity given to the rest of us that are alive today; to witness the blessed and cherished month of ramadan. I pray that all souls that have returned or will find their way back to Allah in this blessed month, shall be received in nothing but Allah’s infinite love, mercy and grace and they all will be greeted with the great news of Jannah as their eternal abode. Amin.

I don’t know about you but I feel heavily burdened and nearly crippled by the weight of my past sins and transgressions, and I’m just grateful to Allah (swt) for the opportunity He has provided us all (In Sha Allah) to witness the night of decree; a mighty night He mentions in the Quran to be better than a thousand months, a night wherein all the angels descend from the heavens and Allah out of His infinite mercy and love for us will pardon and forgive us for all our previous sins (major and minor) and answer all prayers offered in the night!

I pray all of us alive and reading this today will live to witness the blessings of this night and many more similar nights to come in the future In Sha Allah.

For my Muslim brothers and sisters, if you have been struggling the past few days or have been slacking in your tahajuud prayers for the past 20 night of Ramadan, do not grieve or worry because you can still make up for what has passed and still earn the huge reward, love and forgiveness of Allah in the next ten days to come.

So, drink all the coffee in the house if you have to but know that sleeping is NOT an option during the last ten nights of Ramadan. Think about it, its just a sacrifice of a few hours of sleep to wipe out all the sins you’ve accumulated for the past 20 years or however long you’ve lived to sin in this trying world.

Allah in suratul qadr mentioned:

“Indeed, We sent the Qur’an down during the Night of Decree. And what can make you know what is the Night of Decree? The Night of Decree is better than a thousand months. The angels and the Spirit descend therein by permission of their Lord for every matter. Peace it is until the emergence of dawn.”
Al Qadr (97:1-5)

Aisha (ra) reported that:

“With the start of the last ten days of Ramadan, the Prophet (saw) used to tighten his waist belt (i.e work harder) and used to pray the whole night, and used to keep his family awake for the prayers.
Bukhari

Also, Abu Hurayrah (ra) relates that the Prophet (saw) said:

“Whoever stands (in the voluntary night prayer of Ramadan) out of faith and in hope of reward, his previous sins will be forgiven, and whoever spends the night of laylat al-qadr in prayer out of faith and in the hope of reward, his previous sins will be forgiven.”

When I was younger I did not really have a guide as to what to say or supplicate for during the last ten nights of Ramadan. All I knew was that I was supposed to repent and seek Allah’s forgiveness and ask Him for whatever I wanted.

For as long as I can remember I always made a list of the things I wanted before the last ten nights because I did not want to forget anything.

However, as I grew older the list became longer and I realized I wasn’t making the best use of the limited hours I had in the night to worship and supplicate to Allah for all my needs. It was either I spent too much time supplicating for one thing or doing another.

Also, I had the bad habit of supplicating for everyone else that I knew and loved before I supplicated for myself; even though I knew everyone was in the same position as I was and spending time supplicating for themselves. I could spend 30 minutes praying for just one person and when I realize I have just 10 minutes left before its fajr time, I would squeeze in all of my own personal requests in the last ten minutes (by supplicating my most dire needs to the most trivial).

I sat myself down one day and knew I had to do better and change the approach of my prayers during the last ten days of Ramadan. So I developed a prayer plan/schedule for myself and made sure I timed every activity and followed the schedule strictly and repeated it for the last 9 days of ramadan.

The plan I devised for myself has been very helpful to me and I thought to share a sample/template of what I use and hopefully it would guide those of you that do not know how to maximize the few hours you have during the night of Ramadan or those of you who have adopted an impulsive/ haphazard approach of making duas during the last ten days of Ramadan.

Feel free to download and print the document below for your own personal use.