Dua Qunoot is the supplication recited while standing in the final rak’ah of the Witr prayer, asking Allah for guidance, wellbeing, protection and blessing. Here are the full words in Arabic, in transliteration, and in English.

What Is Dua Qunoot? A Simple Definition

Linguistically, qunoot carries the sense of devout obedience, standing before Allah, and humility — which is exactly the posture in which it is recited.

Dua Qunoot is a supplication, not a fixed Quranic verse. That single fact explains something many learners find confusing: you can search a Quran recitation archive for it and find nothing, because it is not part of any surah. It is a dua the Prophet ﷺ taught, recited in the standing position of the prayer.

It also travels under several spellings. Dua qunoot, dua e qunoot, qunoot duas, duas for qunoot and kunuth dua are all names for qunoot — the different forms come from transliterating the Arabic word قنوت into English, Urdu, Malayalam and Tamil. The name, however, does not fix a single wording: more than one transmitted formulation is used. The most widely recited are “Allahumma ihdini feeman hadayt…”, the wording taught to al-Hasan ibn Ali and given in full above, and “Allahumma inna nasta’eenuka…”, widely recited in the Hanafi tradition.

One more expectation to set before you memorise anything: the wording varies slightly between narrations and between schools of thought. You may hear an imam add a phrase you did not learn, or omit one you did. That is normal, it is documented, and it does not mean either of you is reciting it wrongly.

When Is Dua Qunoot Recited? The Three Contexts

Dua Qunoot appears in three different situations, and almost every disagreement you will read about online is really a disagreement about which of the three someone is talking about. Find the one that applies to you tonight, and the rest becomes much simpler.

1. Qunoot in Witr Prayer (The Most Common)

This is the context most readers arrive here for. Dua Qunoot is recited in the final rak’ah of Witr, the odd-numbered prayer that closes the night. The schools differ over whether regular qunoot in Witr is prescribed at all, and — where it is — over its ruling, its position within the rak’ah and the season in which it is recited:

• Hanafi: wajib (necessary) in Witr throughout the year, recited before bowing (ruku’).
• Shafi’i: recommended in the second half of Ramadan, recited after rising from ruku’.
• Hanbali: recommended throughout the year in the relied-upon position of the school, recited after rising from ruku’.
• Maliki: in the well-known later position of the school, regular qunoot in Witr is not prescribed — the Maliki qunoot is in Fajr — although other views are transmitted within the school.

The Prophet ﷺ encouraged making Witr the last prayer of the night (Sahih al-Bukhari 998).

2. Qunoot in Fajr Prayer

In the Shafi’i school, qunoot is recited daily in the second rak’ah of Fajr, after rising from ruku’, as an established sunnah of that prayer. The Maliki school also holds qunoot in Fajr to be recommended, preferably before ruku’.

The Hanafi and Hanbali schools do not treat qunoot in Fajr as a regular practice, reserving it instead for times of calamity. Both positions rest on evidence and on centuries of qualified scholarship — this is a genuine difference of interpretation, not a case of one group being careless with the sunnah.

3. Qunoot an-Nazilah (In Times of Calamity)

Qunoot an-Nazilah is recited when a hardship strikes the Muslim community — war, oppression, drought, famine or disease. Many scholars hold that qunoot is prescribed at such times, but the schools apply it differently. The Shafi’i school prescribes it in all of the obligatory prayers during a calamity; the Hanafi position restricts it to the prayers recited aloud; the well-known Maliki position does not prescribe qunoot in any prayer other than Fajr; and the relied-upon Hanbali position assigns it to the head of state, in the obligatory prayers other than Jumu’ah (IslamWeb, fatwa 3038).

The wording here is not fixed either: the imam supplicates for the specific situation the community is facing, often after the standard opening lines of Dua Qunoot.

How to Pray Witr Prayer with Dua Qunoot: Step by Step

Witr is prayed after Isha and remains valid until Fajr enters, and it is best offered in the last third of the night if you can wake for it. It is prayed in an odd number of rak’ahs — most commonly one or three. Both methods below are practised, and neither is a lesser version of the other.

Keep the dua unhurried. Witr is the last thing you say to Allah before you sleep, and rushing through it to get to the tasleem defeats the point of standing there at all.

Memorise Dua Qunoot Line by Line (Free Interactive Tool)

The fastest way to memorise Dua Qunoot is not to read it forty times from top to bottom. It is to take one short phrase, repeat it until it is effortless, then add the next one. Small wins and spaced repetition beat re-reading the whole dua — which is why most people who “read it every night for a month” still cannot recite it without looking.

Use the trainer below. Hide the text once a line feels familiar, mark it as memorised, and move on. Your progress is saved in this browser, so you can close the page tonight and pick up where you stopped tomorrow.

This is a text-based trainer: each line shows the vocalised Arabic, a transliteration and the English meaning. Say the line aloud, hide it, and recite it from memory before you mark it as memorised.

Getting the Pronunciation Right

There are four sounds in this dua that English speakers almost always miss, and they are not the ones you would expect. The ع in ‘aafinee and ‘aadayt comes from deep in the throat, not from the vowel at the front of the mouth. The first letter of hadayt (هَدَيْتَ) is ه, not ح — two distinct letters that learners often confuse. ه is a light, airy “h” from the deepest part of the throat, while ح is a stronger, breathier sound from the middle of the throat; keep the ه in hadayt light. The ق in qadayt and taqdee comes from the very back of the tongue, not from the “k” position. And the ض in qadayt has no English equivalent at all.

Then there is the ت / ط pair. In tawallanee the ت is light; in a’tayt the ط is heavy and full-mouthed. Swapping them changes the word, and it is the single most common slip in this dua. These sounds are governed by the Tajweed rules that govern these letters — the articulation points and the heavy-versus-light distinction.

Here is the honest part. You can memorise this dua alone, from this page, tonight. What you cannot do alone is correct your own pronunciation, because you cannot hear your own error — your ear has already accepted the sound your mouth is making. If you want to feel a rule rather than read about it, try a free interactive Tajweed lesson and hear the difference for yourself.

How the Four Madhhabs Approach Dua Qunoot

If you have ever prayed behind two different imams and noticed the qunoot happening at two different moments, this table explains why. The differences are about whether qunoot is prescribed in a given prayer, when and how often it is recited, and its ruling — not about the legitimacy of the dua itself.

All four positions come from qualified scholarship working with the same body of authentic narrations, and each has been practised by upright Muslims for over a thousand years. Follow the practice of your own school, or simply follow your local imam — that is what the overwhelming majority of Muslims throughout history have done.

If you are new to Islam and have no madhhab, you are not doing anything wrong by praying the way your local mosque prays. You do not need to choose a school before you are allowed to raise your hands and ask Allah for guidance.

Common Mistakes When Reciting Dua Qunoot

None of these will invalidate your prayer. They are simply the four habits that keep people stuck at the same level for years.

Frequently Asked Questions About Dua Qunoot

Looking for the rest of your evening routine? We have more essential daily duas with audio.

Keep Going: From One Dua to the Whole Quran

If you worked through the trainer above, you did something specific: you took an Arabic text you could not recite, broke it into nine pieces, and closed the gap one piece at a time. That is not a trick for duas. It is exactly how a surah is memorised, and exactly how a juz is memorised — the pieces just keep coming.

If your children are learning alongside you, our free animated Islamic video series covers the same material in a form they will actually sit through, and the Quran Book app keeps the lessons in your pocket for the nights you are travelling.

May Allah make you among those He has guided, and bless you in what He has given you.