Making up the Intentionally Missed Prayers between Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah & Ash-Shaykh Al-Amir As-San’anee
Making up the Intentionally Missed Prayers
Between Shaykhul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah &Ash- Shaykh Al-Amir As-San’anee
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Allah has prescribed and decreed that the five daily prayers are performed during their fixed times. The scholars all agree that if a person has a legislated reason for missing the prayer then he can make it up. Including in those reasons are forgetfulness and sleeping.
Now, what about making up a prayer that one intentionally missed? Can it be made up and should it be ? This is an issue that some of the scholars differ over.
Shaykul Islam Ibn Taymiyyah held the position that the prayer missed purposefully shouldn’t be performed and that it isn’t legislated to be made up. Moreover, if a person offered it then it would be considered an incorrect action. Instead in this instance, the person should make voluntary prayers to compensate for the loss of the obligatory prayers. Other scholars who held the same view as Ibn Taymiyyah were Dawud ibn Ali and Ahmed ibn Yahya Al-Baghdadi (companion of Imam Ash-Shafa’i).
Now, the four Imams of Jurisprudence; Abu Hanifah, Malik, Ash-Shafa’I and Ahmed, all said it was a must to make a prayer missed deliberately.
Ibn Taymiyyah and those who rejected the offering an intentionally missed prayer have concluded their arguments on the fact there isn’t any concrete evidence for doing so, and the scholars based their conclusion off of Qiyas. The Qiyas in the issue is found in the obligation to re-fast for the person who intentionally broke his fast during Ramadan by having sex.
Ibn Taymiyyah considered the report about re-fasting as a defective narration collected by Imam Malik in the Muwatta and Imam Al-Bukhari and Imam Muslim avoided it in their authentic collections.
“A Bedouin came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, beating his breast and tearing out his hair and saying, ‘I am destroyed.’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘Why is that?’, and he said, ‘I had intercourse with my wife while fasting in Ramadan.’ The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, asked him, ‘Are you able to free a slave?’, and the man said, ‘No.’ Then he asked him, ‘Are you able to give away a camel?’, and the man replied, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Sit down,’ and someone brought a large basket of dates to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and he said to the man, ‘Take this and give it away as sadaqa.’ The man said, ‘There is no one needier than me,’ and (the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace), said, ‘Eat them, and fast one day for the day when you had intercourse.’ “
The scholars have said the wording underlined is defective. Reason being, this wording reported by the narrator on Imam Az-Zuhri went against those who were more reliable than him. In fact, Imam Ad-Daruqutni viewed the wording to re-fast as being weak, by saying the narrator contradicted those who were more reliable than him in accuracy and number. Not to mention that number he opposed totals 40 narrators and not one of them ever mentioned, “, ‘Eat them, and fast one day for the day when you had intercourse.’ “
The 2nd argument in defense of those who allow the intentionally missed prayer to be done using the fact that a person who forgets to pray must offer it, so, therefore, it’s all the more right that the person who neglects the prayer deliberately make it up.
Ibn Hazim and Ibn Taymiyyah both concluded this was a weak analogy. [1]
The hadith that orders this missed prayer to be done
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said:
He who forgets the prayer, or he slept (and it was omitted), its expiation is (only) that he should observe it when he remembers it.[2]
This is where the topic gets interesting as Al-Amir As-San’anee refuted the scholars who rejected that this was a sound analogy. He broke his argument down into several points for the possibility to offer the missed prayer and for each point he added other pieces of evidence.
1: The hadith orders that one who overslept the prayer’s timing or forgot it to make it ; therefore the person without an excuse must make it up as well, as the command is for the one those two type of people and the obligation can be understood by the fact it is addressing those with most common type of circumstance to miss the payer, which must include those who intentionally missed it as well.
2:” its expiation is (only) that he should observe it when he remembers it” The wording expiation in most cases is used for those who have done something sinful ;and oversleeping a prayer and forgetting to make it isn’t sinful; hence the one who didn’t pray intentionally must pray, as offering it is the only expiation.
3: Abu Qatadah said:”They told the Prophet (ﷺ) that they had slept and missed the prayer. He said: ‘There is no negligence when one sleeps, rather negligence is when one is awake. If anyone of you forgets a prayer or sleeps and misses it, let him pray it when he remembers it.'”[3]
“let him pray…” This wording is general and includes those who slept or neglected the prayer as mentioned in the hadith.
4: The missed prayer is a debt between Allah and the servant . A debt is only settled when it is paid and delaying its payment beyond its fixed time is a sin; however, it still has to be paid sooner or later.
5: “A man said: ‘O Messenger of Allah! My father has died and he did not perform Hajj; shall I perform Hajj on his behalf?’ He said: ‘Don’t you think that if your father owed a debt you would pay it off?’ The man said: ‘Yes.’ He said: ‘The debt owed to Allah is more deserving (of being paid off).”‘[4]
The Prophet (ﷺ) highlighted that the debt owed to Allah is more deserving of being paid off. And this applies to Hajj and fasting. So if a person died without completing these two obligations and had the ability to do so, then the one entrusted with his affairs would have to perform them on his behalf. i.e power of attorney, spouse, children,etc.
Amir San’ani mentioned that a person might ask; how can you consider the prayer a debt between the servant and Allah? The reply is it is known that the person, who acknowledges Tawheed, must also recognize Muhammad (ﷺ) as a prophet, along with the other four pillars of the religion. The pillars of Islam are a right of Allah that must be fulfilled [prayer, Hajj, Zakat, fasting], either in their time period or otherwise.
6: There is a consensus that whoever leaves off Thur until Asr comes in, or Maghrib until Isha comes in, must make those prayers up at a later time. So if he prays Thur or Maghrib before Fajr the next day then the obligation is lifted from him. Not praying the prayers in their legislated fixed timings is a major sin.[5]
Those are all of the arguments that Al-Amir As-San’ani used to defend his position that the prayers intentionally missed must be done. Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Hazm both in this issue reject the Qiyas used. Their final conclusion to this issue is the missed prayers aren’t offered but the only way to compensate for the lost prayers is by offering Sunnah. This is supported in the hadith.
The Prophet (ﷺ), who said:
Allah (تعالى) says: The first of his actions for which a servant of Allah will be held accountable on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayers. If they are in order, then he will have prospered and succeeded: and if they are wanting, then he will have failed and lost. If there is something defective in his obligatory prayers, the Lord (glorified and exalted be He) will say: See if My servant has any supererogatory prayers with which may be completed that which was defective in his obligatory prayers. Then the rest of his actions will be judged in like fashion.
The hadith infers that the missed obligatory prayers aren’t made up, but are reimbursed by sunnah prayers. Allah accepts the sunnah prayers done correctly in place for the missed Fard prayers as the hadeeth clearly states. Overall, the position of Ibn Taymiyyah is possibly the most favorable one based on evidence whereas the other views are based on analogy. And Allah knows best.
Prepared and compiled by
Abu Aaliyah Abdullah ibn Dwight Lamont Battle.
Doha, Qatar 1439H©
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[1] اختيارات ابن تيمية , by Ba’ali
[2] Al-Bukhari(597), Muslim(314)
[3] Muslim (681)
[4] An-Nisa’i(2639)
[5] إرشاد القاصد لأدلة قضاء العامدby Muhammad ibn Isma’il As-San’ani