The word · Worship
اعْتِكاف
I'tikaf
Staying in a mosque for a set period, devoted to worship and cut off from ordinary business.
Also written · Itikaf · Etikaf · Iktikaf · Aitikaf · Itikaaf · spiritual retreat · mosque retreat · Itiqaf
The meaning
What I'tikaf means in Islam
The word means to keep to something. The Qur'an mentions it in the verses on fasting, and the Prophet kept i'tikaf in the last ten nights of Ramadan every year. The one in retreat leaves only for necessity. Hanafis allow a woman to observe it in the place she prays at home; the other schools hold that it must be in a mosque.
Evidence · Scholars differ · The scholars read this one differently
Read beside it
Rooms that name it
- He spent the last ten nights of Ramadan in the mosqueA Light · Aisha · the last ten nights of Ramadan
- Surah Al-QadrSurah 97 · The Night of Decree
Words that sit beside it
- SawmFasting: abstaining from food, drink and intimacy from true dawn until sunset, with intention.صَوْم
- TarawihThe night prayer of Ramadan, prayed in congregation after Isha through the month.تَراويح
- SalahThe formal Muslim prayer, performed five times a day at set times, facing Makkah.الصَّلاة
More from Worship
- AdhanThe call announcing that a prayer time has entered, given aloud before each obligatory prayer.أَذان
- HalqShaving the head after the rites, which releases the pilgrim from the state of ihram.حَلْق
- KhumsA fifth of certain wealth; in Sunni law on spoils and treasure, in Shia practice a yearly payment.خُمْس
- Qada (making up worship)Performing an obligatory act of worship after its proper time has passed, to make it up.قَضاء
- Salat al-JanazahThe funeral prayer, said standing over the deceased, with no bowing and no prostration.صَلاةُ الجَنازَة
- Tamattu'One of the three ways to perform hajj: umrah first, then leaving ihram, then hajj from Makkah.تَمَتُّع