These daily Namaz are farz, sunnat, witr and nafl prayers. Farz are those distinctly ordained by God, such as the five stated periods of prayer. Sunnat, a certain number of rak'ats which are added, because it is said the Prophet repeated them. Witr rak'ats are an odd number of rak'ats, 3, 5 or 7, which may be said after the last prayer at night, and before the dawn of day. Usually they are added to the Salat-ul-'Isha. Imam Abu Hanifa says they are wajib, that is ordered by God. They are not authorised by any text in the Quran, but by Traditions each of which is generally received as a Hadis-i-Sahih, and so witr rak'ats are regarded as being of divine authority. Imam Shafa'i, however, considers them to be sunnat only, a term already explained. The Traditions referred to are: "God has added to your Namaz one Namaz more: know that it is witr, say it between the Salat-ul-'Isha and dawn." On the authority of Buzar, a Traditionist, it is recorded that the Prophet {199} said: "Witr is wajib upon Muslims," and in order to enforce the practice he added: "Witr is right, he who does not observe it is not my follower." The Prophet, the Companions, the Taba'in and the Taba-i-Taba'in all observed it. The word witr literally means "odd number." A Tradition says: "God is odd, He loves the odd." (Allahu witrun yuhibbu'l-witra). Musalmans pay the greatest respect to an odd number. It is considered unlucky to begin any work, or to commence a journey on a day, the date of which is an even number. The number of lines in a page of a book is nearly always an odd number. Nafl are voluntary prayers the performance of which is considered mustahab, or meritorious, but they are not of divine obligation. It must be understood that all these prayers are precisely the same in form. They simply consist in the repetition of a number of rak'ats, of which I have already given a single illustration in full. A Muslim who says the five daily prayers with the full number of rak'ats will repeat the Service I have described fifty times in one day. If in addition to these he observes the three voluntary periods of prayers, he must add twenty-five more rak'ats, making a grand total of seventy-five. It is, however, usual to omit some of the Sunnat rak'ats; still there is a vast amount of repetition, and as the whole must be said in Arabic it becomes very mechanical. A Muslim who ventured to say that a Namaz might be recited in Hindustani was publicly excommunicated in the principal Mosque at Madras on Friday, February 13th, 1880.[201] The table on the next page will make the matter clear.[202] The optional Sunnat rak'ats are called {200} 'Sunnat-i-ghair-i-maukadda'; the Sunnat rak'ats before the farz are 'Sun-nat-i-maukadda' and should be said.