the importance of nawafil prayers ☾
there is a hadith that once the Holy Prophet ﷺ saw a man offering a prayer and asked him to repeat it, so he did. then he asked him to repeat it again, and then he did. then for the third time, and fourth time, he told him to go and do it again. after the fourth request, the man said to the Prophet ﷺ "O Messenger of Allah, by God I cannot offer the prayer in a better way than this; tell me how I should offer the Prayer". He ﷺ responded, 'you were rushing with your Prayer and therefore it was not accepted. pray slowly'. (sahih bukhari 757).
this shows us that sometimes our prayers are not accepted and it is up to Allah whether to accept our prayers or not. however, if someone offers the nawafil prayers too, then it can make up for the prayers that have not been accepted
imagine that you have an exam. you need 50 marks to pass, but there are 100 questions worth 1 mark each. are you going to only answer 50 questions and go home without answering the rest and assume that all the 50 questions you have answered are correct? no. you're going to answer all 100 questions, even though it is obligatory to have at least gotten 50 right. you will try to answer all the questions in the hopes that for the ones you have gotten wrong, the rest of the questions answered will hopefully make up for it and you will pass.
it is the same for nawafil prayers. these nawafil prayers are like the rest of the 50 questions you can answer that help ensure that you pass. nawafil prayers can prevent you from facing the penalty for any shortcomings and errors that led to a rejected prayer on the Day of Judgement.
"by offering nawafil, My servant gets so close to Me that I become the ears with which he hears, the eyes with which he sees, the hands with which he holds, and the feet with which he walks" (sahih bukhari 6502)
