<b>Guidance from the Hadith:</b><br> 1) It shows the merit of delaying the ‘Ishā’ prayer, unless this is difficult for people.<br> 2) It gives glad tidings to the believers by virtue of their worship, as they continue to perform it actively.<br> 3) The time of the ‘Ishā’ prayer extends to the middle of the night and not beyond that. The period from the middle of the night to dawn is not a time for an obligatory prayer; rather, it is a time for Qiyām al-Layl and Tahajjud (voluntary night prayer), which is supererogatory. So, we should be careful not to delay the ‘Ishā’ prayer beyond the middle of the night, as some people commonly do.<br> <br> <b>Benefit:</b><br> We can know the time of the middle of the night by calculating the time from sunset (when the call to the Maghrib prayer is announced) to dawn (when the call to Fajr prayer is announced) and dividing it by two. When we add the result to the time of the Maghrib prayer, we get the middle of the night. For example:<br> If the Maghrib prayer becomes due at 7 pm and the Fajr prayer at 4 am; so the time between them is 9 hours. When we divide 9 by two, we get 4.5 hours. Then, we add the 4.5 hours to the 7 pm, and thus the middle of the night occurs at 11:30 pm.<br> Hence, the middle of the night is not necessarily at 12:00 am, as some people believe.