Chapter on the missed prayer — Tuḥfat al-Mulūk

Ruling352

4 notes

Whoever misses a prayer makes it up when he remembers before the time’s obligation ends—unless he fears missing the obligatory end of time, or performing in a disliked time, or the missed prayers are six all old or new; if he makes up one of the six the order returns …

From the editors

If he fears that beginning the makeup would cause him to miss the obligatory end of the current prayer’s time (fawt farḍ al-waqt), he prays the present farḍ first, then the missed prayer, because safeguarding the alive obligation takes precedence over the debt.

Whoever omits an obligatory prayer incurs sin, and removing that sin requires tawbah together with discharging the qaḍāʾ as soon as he remembers, without idle delay. The expression “before the time’s obligation ends” (قبل فرض الوقت) is read in the school as the window within which he may still lawfully perform the makeup before the next prayer’s obligation closes the practical space for it in the manner described in the detailed manuals—that is, he is not to postpone qaḍāʾ in a way that would leave him unable to perform the present obligatory prayer at its due or within its valid extent.

When the missed prayers he owes reach six—whether the whole set is old backlog (qadīm) or all recent (ḥadīth), or a mixture—the strict chronological order (tarīb) normally binding between missed prayers is lifted for that set: he may begin with whichever of the six he chooses, subject to the usual conditions of intention and validity. Once he has completed qaḍāʾ of one full prayer from those six, tarīb returns for whatever remains: thereafter he must observe sequence among the outstanding makeups. See: al-Hidāyah (Ṣalāh, qaḍāʾ al-fawāʾit); Ibn Nujaym, al-Baḥr al-Rāʾiq; Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Radd al-Muḥtār (bab al-fāʾitah).

Similarly, if he fears that performing the makeup now would bring his prayer—whether the makeup itself or the present obligatory prayer—into a disliked time in the technical sense used in the school’s treatment of restricted windows, he arranges order and timing so as to avoid that outcome where the manuals permit deferral, without leaving the living obligation unperformed.

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