Repairing Your Worship

1. 01A debt, not a lossThe principle of repair, and the four tools
2. 02Slips inside the prayerAdding, omitting, and the salām given too early
3. 03Doubt and waswasLosing count, and the doubt that should be ignored
4. 04Sahw in congregationAlerting the imam; joining late
5. 05Repeat, or repair?Invalidating acts, broken wuḍūʾ, najāsah found late
6. 06Missed obligatory prayersSleep, forgetfulness, order, forbidden times, neglect
7. 07Special cases in missed prayersMenses, new Muslims, illness, travel
8. 08Making up sunnah prayers and witrWhat the Sunnah shows, and what it leaves open
9. 09Who may leave the fastTraveller, sick, pregnant, nursing, elderly, child, menses
10. 10Qaḍāʾ of RamadanTiming, Shawwāl, delay, and what needs no qaḍāʾ
11. 11Fidyah and kaffārahWho pays, how much, and the heavy expiation
12. 12Debts of the dead, missed occasions, and a decision tableThe deceased, Jumuʿah and ʿĪd; what you owe at a glance

Everyone who prays makes mistakes in prayer. Everyone who fasts will one day miss a fast. The Sharīʿah assumes this will happen, and for almost every lapse it sets a repair that is specific and can actually be done.

This book follows the order in which people meet the problem: the slip in the middle of a prayer, the prayer missed altogether, the fast broken or never begun, and the debts a person leaves at death. Each chapter gives what you owe, its evidence, and where the evidence runs out.

The Ramadan verses

The clearest statement of the principle is in the verses that made Ramadan obligatory. A missed day is not lost. It is owed, and it is paid on other days:

The prayer is paid, not fined

For prayer, the Prophet ﷺ gave the principle in one sentence:

In that narration he then recited the verse Allah addressed to Mūsā:

The site's Missed Prayers page keeps two things apart: "The excuse — sleep or forgetfulness — removes the blame. It does not remove the prayer." Forgetting is forgiven; the obligation stays.

The four tools

Every repair in this book is one of four things.

A prayer made invalid is not repaired at all but prayed again (Chapter 5).

The Prophet ﷺ made each of the common mistakes in front of his Companions, and showed the repair.

You added something: an extra rakʿah

He did not restart the prayer. He learned of the addition after it was over and made the two prostrations after the salām.

You left something out: the first tashahhud

The second narration of Ibn Buḥaynah names the prayer as Ẓuhr and says the same thing: "When he finished the prayer he performed two prostrations (of Sahu) and then finished the prayer with Taslim" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1225). Here the prostrations came before the salām.

You gave the salām too early

The longer narration of the same event (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1229) records his first answer, "Neither have I forgotten, nor has the prayer been reduced." When the people confirmed it, he completed the missing two rakʿahs, gave the salām, and then prostrated twice. He built on what had already been prayed rather than starting again.

The working rule

The site's Sujūd as-Sahw page draws a simple rule from these narrations:

The page adds that the madhhabs differ over before and after, and that the prayer is correct either way: "If you do it on the "wrong" side out of forgetfulness, your prayer still stands." One school's position is named in the site's answers: qa-130 records that "the Hanafi school generally places sujud al-sahw after the salam in almost every case".

Three details that come up every week

You stood up without the first tashahhud. Not yet fully standing: sit back down. Fully standing: carry on, and prostrate twice before the salām (Sujūd as-Sahw page).

You missed a pillar, such as a whole rakʿah. The prostrations do not replace it. Do the missing pillar, as he prayed the missing two rakʿahs for Dhul-Yadayn, then add the prostrations (Sujūd as-Sahw page).

You did it on purpose. Sahw is for forgetting. "Deliberately adding or dropping an obligatory part still invalidates the prayer" (Sujūd as-Sahw page), and it is prayed again (Chapter 5).

How to perform the two prostrations

Say Allāhu akbar and prostrate as in the prayer, with its tasbīḥ; sit briefly; prostrate again; then give the salām (again, if the prostrations came after it). There is no special duʿāʾ for them (Sujūd as-Sahw page).

Losing count is the commonest slip of all, and the Prophet ﷺ said where it comes from:

A fuller narration describes Shayṭān coming back after the iqāmah and saying "Remember this and that", "till the praying person forgets how much he has prayed. If anyone of you does not remember whether he has offered three or four rak`at then he should perform two prostrations of Sahu while sitting" (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1231).

When you are unsure of the count

The Prophet ﷺ answered this from his own experience. After prostrating for a change in a prayer he had led, he said:

The site's pages give two ways of settling a doubt, and they apply to different states of mind:

Waswas is a different thing

A doubt that comes back every prayer, with no reason behind it, is not the doubt these hadiths are about. The site's Sujūd as-Sahw page is direct: "Persistent, baseless doubt (waswasah) is to be ignored, not acted upon — otherwise a person would prostrate endlessly."

The same rule governs wuḍūʾ. When a man asked about someone who imagined he had passed wind in prayer, the Prophet ﷺ replied:

The site's answer qa-129 draws the principle from this, "certainty is not removed by mere doubt", and gives the practical warning: redoing wuḍūʾ "'just in case' tends to reinforce the compulsion rather than resolve it." Treat the whisper as something to resist, not information to obey.

Most men in Malaysia and the UAE pray the obligatory prayers behind an imam.

The imam makes the mistake

The congregation alerts him:

The site's answer qa-133 applies this to recitation too. A follower who knows the correct words may prompt him, and "most scholars hold the prayer remains valid throughout."

You joined late (masbūq)

The site's answer qa-507: the latecomer joins the imam in whatever position he finds him, and after the imam's salām "he stands and makes up the rak'ahs he missed". The same answer states that the part prayed with the imam "counts as the beginning of his prayer, not the end". It also records the majority's view that catching the imam in rukūʿ counts as catching the rakʿah, which rests on the report of Abū Bakrah:

He praised the eagerness and forbade the rush: come calmly.

Sujūd as-sahw mends a valid prayer with a slip in it; it cannot mend a prayer that was never valid.

What invalidates the prayer

The site's answer qa-024 lists them: "speaking deliberately, eating or drinking, excessive unnecessary movement, leaving the qibla, or losing wudu", and a pillar left out and not corrected. The word that matters in most of these is deliberately. The Prophet ﷺ spoke in the Dhul-Yadayn prayer believing it was over, and he completed it rather than repeating it (Chapter 2).

You find out afterwards that you had no wuḍūʾ

This is not a slip: the prayer lacked its condition. This book's reading of Bukhārī 135 and qa-024 is that you make wuḍūʾ and pray it again as soon as you find out.

Knowing is the condition here. A doubt afterwards that you might have lost wuḍūʾ changes nothing. Certainty is not removed by doubt (Bukhārī 137, qa-129).

You find out that there was najāsah on you

He learned of the impurity mid-prayer, removed it, and carried on without starting again. That does not settle the case of najāsah found only after the prayer is over, and the site's Najāsah page (deen2u.com/najasah/) does not set out the positions on it, so this book leaves it for the owner to source.

A continuous excuse is not a broken prayer

Someone with a constant discharge (urine, wind, or istiḥāḍah) is ṣāḥib al-ʿudhr, and their prayer is not invalidated by what they cannot stop. The site's page on chronic excuses in wuḍūʾ puts the limit in one line: "One is excused from what is beyond control, not from what is within it." The details are at deen2u.com/chronic-wudu-excuses/.

Sleep and forgetfulness: pray it when you remember

Bukhārī 597 (Chapter 1) is the rule. The journey on which the Companions slept through Fajr shows how it was carried out:

From this and Bukhārī 597:

Several prayers missed: in order

On the day of the Trench the Muslims were kept from ʿAṣr until after sunset:

ʿAṣr first, then Maghrib. The Missed Prayers page takes from this that the Sunnah is to make up missed prayers "in their correct sequence (tartīb)".

If you remember during a forbidden time

A missed obligatory prayer is not a voluntary prayer, and the prohibition on praying after Fajr and after ʿAṣr concerns voluntary prayer. The site's Forbidden Prayer Times page sets out the positions. The majority, "including the Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs", hold that it is made up whenever it is remembered, in any of the five windows. "The Ḥanafīs except the three narrow windows" (sunrise, the zenith and sunset) "and say the make-up prayer waits the few minutes until they pass." The page's advice: pray at once, and if it is one of the three short windows, wait the few minutes, which "costs little and exits the difference".

The prayer left on purpose

The texts above speak of sleep and forgetting. Someone who was awake, remembered, and let the time run out is in a graver position, and the site gives two positions on whether that prayer is made up:

qa-754 points to the verses that speak of this kind of neglect and of the way back:

Both agree that deliberately abandoning prayer is a grave sin; the Missed Prayers page asks the reader to "pursue this with a trustworthy scholar rather than treating either view as a light matter." The practical advice in qa-754 holds on either view: "guard today's prayers first, make up what you reasonably can alongside them, and never let an uncountable backlog become the excuse that keeps you from praying now."

Menstruation and post-natal bleeding

Prayers not prayed during menses are not owed. A woman asked ʿĀʾishah whether she should make them up, and she answered:

Fasts are different. Missed fasts are made up (Chapter 9).

The new Muslim

Nothing is owed for the years before Islam. The site's answer qa-587: "you owe nothing for the years before you accepted Islam … Simply start now and keep going." It rests on the Prophet's ﷺ words to ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ:

Illness, unconsciousness and anaesthesia

A sick person who is conscious still prays in whatever posture they can manage. That is prevention rather than repair, and the site's Prayer of the Sick page covers it (deen2u.com/prayer-of-the-sick/).

Travel and combining: prevention, not repair

Most prayers missed on a journey need not have been missed. Shortening and combining are what make a long flight or drive manageable; learn them before you travel: deen2u.com/travel-prayer/ and deen2u.com/combining-prayers/.

Voluntary prayers are not a debt as the obligatory ones are, yet the Sunnah preserves two instances of the Prophet ﷺ making up a missed regular sunnah.

The sunnah after Ẓuhr, made up after ʿAṣr

Umm Salamah had heard him forbid praying two rakʿahs after ʿAṣr, then saw him pray them, and sent to ask him why. He answered:

The two rakʿahs before Fajr, after oversleeping

On the journey of Chapter 6, "they offered two rak'ahs of (Sunnah) of Fajr and then offered the Fajr prayer" once they woke after sunrise (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 437 Sahih). When Fajr itself is made up, its sunnah goes with it.

Why it is worth the effort

Umm Ḥabībah adds in the same narration: "I have not abandoned observing them after (hearing it from the Messenger of Allah)."

Where the scholars differ: a missed sunnah in a forbidden time

Bukhārī 1233 is also the text in a real difference of opinion. The site's Forbidden Prayer Times page sets it out. One side allows prayers that have a cause, such as a missed routine sunnah, in the forbidden spans, and cites this narration. The other, "The Ḥanafīs and Mālikīs, and the standard Ḥanbalī position", holds the prohibition general. The page notes that "among the Companions themselves ʿUmar disciplined people for the after-ʿAṣr rakʿahs", as Ibn ʿAbbās says in this same narration. Making it up outside the forbidden times avoids the question.

The first question about a missed fast is whether you were allowed to leave it. The Quran names the sick and the traveller (2:184-185), and the Sunnah adds others.

The traveller

A permission, not a command. How far counts as travel is disputed: qa-149 records that most classical jurists set a threshold "commonly cited as around 80–90 km", while some contemporary scholars look instead to real hardship and being away from home. The traveller makes up the days.

The sick

The Quran: "if any of you is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed number (Should be made up) from days later" (2:184). The site's answer qa-148 separates two cases. A temporary illness: break the fast when needed and make the days up once well. A chronic condition unlikely to improve: fidyah instead (Chapter 11). For diabetes and the like it sends the reader to "a knowledgeable and trustworthy physician".

The pregnant and the nursing woman

What she owes afterwards is disputed; qa-147 gives the range:

qa-145 adds that some extend fidyah to her "either instead of or alongside qada, though this is debated." Her health and her child's come first (qa-147).

The elderly

The elderly person who cannot fast pays fidyah and owes no qaḍāʾ, since there are no "other days" to come.

Children

Fasting is not yet obligatory on a child, so nothing is owed for fasts before puberty. The site's Practice page lists children as "(not yet obligatory)".

Menstruation and post-natal bleeding

She does not fast, and the days are made up later. The site's answers state this ruling: menstruation and post-natal bleeding "end the fast for that day, to be made up later" (qa-031), and menstruation is among the excuses that oblige qaḍāʾ (qa-146). So she owes the fasts but not the prayers (Chapter 7).

When to make up

The window for qaḍāʾ is wide. The site's answer qa-146 adds that the days "do not need to be made up consecutively, and there is no requirement to repay them in the order they were missed", and that the safest course is to finish them "as early as reasonably possible".

Qaḍāʾ or the six days of Shawwāl first?

The site's answer qa-771 records a real difference:

qa-771 calls this "a genuine and respectable ikhtilaf, so no one should be criticised for either practice", and takes the first as the safer and stronger view.

If the next Ramadan arrives first

The site's answer qa-146 gives the positions. The majority hold that qaḍāʾ should be completed before the following Ramadan and that delaying without a reason is discouraged, but that the delay "does not invalidate the qada itself". The days are still owed and still made up. "Some add that an unexplained delay past the next Ramadan should be accompanied by fidyah in addition to the fast, though this is disputed among the schools." What qa-146 discourages is delay "without a valid reason"; this book reads a delay caused by an excuse that simply continued as outside that warning. If fasting later becomes impossible for good, "the obligation converts to fidyah instead" (qa-146).

What needs no qaḍāʾ at all

Eating or drinking by forgetting.

Stop when you remember and complete the day; nothing is owed.

Vomiting that overcomes you.

Where Tirmidhī's translation says "make up", Abū Dāwūd's says "atonement"; it is not the kaffārah of Chapter 11. Deliberate vomiting breaks the fast (qa-031) and the day is made up.

Fidyah: for the fast you will never be able to repay

Fidyah is not a way to buy out of a fast you could make up. qa-145 limits it to "a fast a person is unlikely ever to be able to make up", and applies it to "the elderly and to those with a chronic illness with no realistic hope of recovery — people for whom qada is not a future option." The evidence is 2:184 and Ibn ʿAbbās's reading of it (Bukhārī 4505, Chapter 9).

Kaffārah: intercourse in a Ramadan day

One act in Ramadan carries a heavy expiation, and the Prophet ﷺ gave it in answer to a man who came saying, "I have been ruined":

The site's answer qa-634 adds two points. The kaffārah is "in addition to making up that day", and "the scholars restrict this specific kaffarah to intercourse (not to eating or drinking)". The end of the narration shows the mercy in it. The man could do none of the three. A basket of dates was brought and the Prophet ﷺ told him to give it in charity; when the man said no family in Madinah was poorer than his, the Prophet ﷺ smiled and said, "Feed your family with it".

What does not call for kaffārah

Fasts owed by someone who has died

The site's answers qa-681 and qa-635 narrow this to fasts the person was able to make up but did not. "If the deceased had a valid excuse for the missed fasts and never regained the ability to make them up, there is no sin and no obligation upon the family" (qa-681). Where the family does not fast, qa-635 records that "some scholars permit feeding a poor person for each missed day from the estate."

Prayers owed by someone who has died

The site's answer qa-681 gives the majority position: "no one can pray them on another's behalf, since prayer is a bodily act bound to the individual; instead the deceased is benefited through duʿāʾ, charity, and the repayment of his debts."

Vows

A vow is a debt too. Bukhārī 1953 includes the case of a woman whose mother "had vowed to fast but she didn't fast". ʿUmar asked about a vow of iʿtikāf he had made before Islam:

Missed Jumuʿah

The site's Friday Prayer page answers this directly. Jumuʿah "cannot be made up as Jumu'ah: whoever misses it prays Dhuhr's four rak'ahs instead." Whoever misses it "for a valid excuse — illness, travel, real hardship — simply prays Dhuhr with no blame at all". The same page warns that treating the weekly assembly as optional is a far more serious matter. A shift worker who could not attend prays Ẓuhr in its time.

Decision table: what happened, what you owe, the evidence

O Allah, accept what we offered, forgive what we fell short in, and make us among those who guard their prayers.