As soon as offering the sunnah prayers after Ish’a was over, the lights in the mosque’s hall were dimmed. Only the ones in the courtyard and gallery stayed lit-up to give about enough light to know where your forehead hit the ground during sajda.
Switching off the lights during Taraweeh is a very peculiar habit at mosques. Interestingly, I can’t seem to remember if that was always the case, but it has been the case for at least the past more than a decade or so. Definitely during the time I was in college, because that time holds one of the most distinctly conscious memories of Ramadan and Taraweeh.
If anything, dimming the lights just helps zoning out a bit easier as you listen to the Imam reciting verses from the Qur’an. As the Imam keeps reciting, it doesn’t take very long before a trance like state is induced, broken only by the punctuation ‘AllahuAkbar’ signaling the transition to ruku and sajda, after which you resume the trance like state again.
Blame it on the trance, because nobody realized that just one raka’t had been offered instead of the required two. I was unsure myself, and although I felt that maybe the Imam sat down early, I just waited for someone else to prompt with AllahuAkbar to indicate that there was something wrong. Nobody did, everybody was waiting for somebody.
Immediately after salaam to end the prayer, a couple of voices made it clear that a raka’t had been missed. There were a few, of course including the Imam, who disputed the claim, saying that two raka’ts had been offered. Sitting in the first row right in front of me, Abba was one of the latter.
My suspicion was confirmed as soon as the first voice rose to point out, and I was about to raise my voice in support when I heard Abba saying that he thought two raka’ts had been offered. My voice just mumbled inside my throat.
The Imam did realize that we had prayed one short, and eventually twenty one raka’ts were offered instead of twenty.
I just didn’t have the heart to object to what Abba believed.
Would one raka’t have mattered so much?