Making Up Missed Prayers

Opening — Quranic Verse

My dear respected brothers and sisters, respected elders, and young students, السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

Striving in the Path of Allah

In this ayah, Allah is giving us a command that is addressing all of us as believers — that we need to strive in the path of Allah and it is for this struggle and this striving in His cause that He has created us. Allah says:

Strive in the path of Allah the way it is the right of Allah that you strive in His path — not how much you feel is comfortable for yourselves, how much you are able to, or whenever you feel like, or whenever it is easy for you, but rather the way it is the right of Allah that you strive in His path.

The Four Worlds

Allah has created this dunya as a place of struggle and effort. Then He has created the barzakh as a place of rest — that is the middle world. Then He has created the Day of Judgment and the akhirah as a place of compensation — either of khair for those who do good and sharr for those who do evil. The judgment will be passed and then the result will be given by Allah. The judgment will not be given in this world. The reward and punishment — for some, Allah might begin it in this world, but otherwise that is reserved for the hereafter. Likewise, the period of rest as an objective is in the barzakh. There is rest in this world too, and the intention of rest is to strengthen oneself and to regain the ability to continue on with efforts, but the primary purpose of this worldly life — this dunya — is to make effort.

Before this dunya, the first world is alam al-arwah. The purpose of that world was intidhar — to wait. Wait for when your time comes. You are just waiting in line. Whenever the time comes for you to enter the world, then your soul will come into the womb of your mother when it reaches four months. So the alam al-arwah is a place of waiting. The alam of the dunya is a place of effort. The alam of the barzakh is a place of intidhar — to wait and to rest. And the alam of the akhirah is a place where the jaza — the reward and the punishment — will be given by Allah.

So right now we are in that period of our life between these four worlds. We are now in the second world. Some souls are still waiting — those that are to come, our great-grandchildren who are not here yet. May Allah keep our lineage on iman. They are waiting to come into this world. We are in this world currently — we are here to make effort. After we leave this world, we will be resting in our graves. And after the period of rest, when the trumpet will be blown for the second time, then we will be resurrected from our graves and the Day of Judgment will commence.

The Diversity of Human Efforts

So we have to strive in this world. Everyone is striving — some are striving for noble causes, some are striving for other causes. Allah says:

Verily your efforts are diverse in nature — some are earning their akhirah, some are destroying their akhirah.

Every morning there are those who come out — they have the flag of Allah and Rahman in their hands and they are earning their jannah on that day. Others are coming out with the flag of Shaytan — sleeping through the Fajr, missing the salah.

Starting off the day with the urine of Shaytan in the ears — they miss the adhan, they do not remember Allah. Carrying the flag of Shaytan, they go out and earn their destruction. Some are freeing themselves from the fire of Jahannam, some are securing their place in the fire of Jahannam. Everyone is making effort.

The Example of the Sahaba

What type of effort do we have to make? Allah says: وَجَاهِدُوا فِي اللَّهِ حَقَّ جِهَادِهِ — strive in the path of Allah the way it is the right of Allah that you strive in His path. And the Sahaba, رضي الله عنهم أجمعين, they were the example for the ummah till the Day of Judgment. They showed how they made the effort of deen their priority.

That is why it is mentioned that if the Sahaba hypothetically were to come alive and they would look at our condition and we would look at their condition, then we would come to the conclusion that these people are majaneen — meaning crazy people. Their focus is purely on the hereafter. They have absolutely no concern for this material life. They are not among those that Allah says:

May you prefer this worldly life, whereas the hereafter is far better and eternal. They are those who prefer the albaqiyat al-salihat — they prefer the deeds that remain, the investment that remains forever.

They are looking forward to that trade and merchandise which will never ever bear any loss — tijaratan lan tabur. They are looking forward to that business they have done with Allah. The business that Allah has invited — such a business that will save you from a dreadful torment. Allah is asking the question: shall I not inform you of such a business that will save you from a dreadful torment? You believe in Allah and His Rasul and you strive with your wealth and your honor and your family and your assets — whatever you have — with your wealth and with your lives. And in return Allah will promise the gardens underneath which rivers flow.

So this was their focus — the akhirah. If they have to put everything on the line, they are ready to put everything on the line. So if you would look at their condition, we would say these people are majaneen — crazies. And if they would look at our condition, they would say that these are munafiqeen — hypocrites. This would be our common analysis of each other's condition, because they would say these people claim to be Muslims but their actions are very different.

A Category That Did Not Exist in the Time of the Prophet

Indeed, this category of people — non-practicing Muslims — did not even exist in the time of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم. What are the different categories that we find in the Quran? Mushrikoon — these are the open polytheists of Mecca. Then we find Yahood — Banu Quraiza, Banu Qaynuqa, and Banu Nadir, the three Jewish tribes, and other Jews of Khaybar, etc. Then we find Nasara of Najran and other Christians. And then there was one group — they were munafiqoon, but the munafiqoon were hypocrites in the sense that munafiqoon itikadi — from the aqeedah perspective they did not believe in Islam. The majority of them were from the Jews, some were from the mushrikeen, and they outwardly acted like Muslims.

And then you had Muhajiroon and Ansar — the Sahaba. So the category of those who recite the kalima and believe in the kalima — they are not, alhamdulillah, munafiq itikadi, meaning from their aqeedah perspective they are not munafiq, they actually believe. But they are not practicing — in their amal, their actions are not in conformance; their iman is not proven through their deeds. This category did not even exist in the time of Rasulullah, because whoever was a reciter of the kalima and was a believer was not a munafiq — he was a genuine Sahabi of Rasulullah and falls under the statement: Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Allah.

The Ruling on Qada — Making Up Missed Prayers

This falls under the statement: Allah has promised the best for all of them. For example, just to take the issue of qada — there is some confusion. People try to raise this question: if you are a Muslim and you are a believer in the kalima and you did not perform salah and you are negligent and you miss salah — you didn't just miss your Fajr and make it qada before the Jumu'ah salah, nor did you just miss two prayers or three prayers, nor did you miss the prayers when you were traveling or when you were sick — may Allah forgive me and you and the ummah — maybe a person did not pray for five years, he just did not pray, or once in a while if he was at a gathering and everyone was praying then he prayed with everyone else, but his habitual default status was not praying.

And this is unfortunately not a very strange concept that we cannot imagine. This is very common. How many people are Muslims who do not pray? And five years is a very conservative figure — it could be ten years, it could be twenty years, it could be thirty years, it could be forty, fifty years. And the period of time will start from the period of bulugh — when they become physically mature. That is when salah becomes wajib.

Salah being such an obligation — Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, has said that the one who intentionally leaves a prayer has committed an act of kufr. Whoever establishes salah has established his deen. Whoever destroys his salah has destroyed his deen. The position of salah in Islam is the position of the head in the body — without the head, the body is not much use. That is the position of salah in Islam.

Despite all of this, because of the widespread weakness of faith, there are many people who do not pray. If you do not pray and then afterwards when you make tawbah — when you say, "I repent to Allah, I will become a better Muslim" — you had a near-death experience, you went for Hajj and Umrah, your mother passed away, some calamity struck, whatever brought you close to Allah — now you want to start praying salah. So what is the hukum now about all the prayers you missed?

It is very clear that when the time for salah comes you perform the salah — this is adab. And when the time passes, you have to make it up — it is called qada. So qada would be compulsory for all the prayers a person missed.

Qada al-Umri — The Lifetime Makeup Plan

Now practically speaking, a person makes tawbah later in his years. Allah gives the signs — the black hair turned white, the knees started giving in, his vision became less than before. He realized that he is heading towards his grave, he made tawbah. Now he wants to make up the salah. How many years of salah can he really make up? Does it mean that he does nothing?

It is easy for a mufti to say, "OK, now you have to make up all the prayers of your whole life," but how is a person actually going to do that? That means that besides basically sleeping the minimum number of hours to physically remain alive and meeting the basic requirements of intake of food and water, he has to literally be praying non-stop — الله أكبر to salam, stand up, الله أكبر and salam — and still it might be impossible to make up all the prayers.

So that is why the scholars say — and this is like in this day and age in this financial condition that the ummah is going through, that America is going through and other places — people have so much debt. So if you tell them it is haram, you have to pay up your debt, you should not die in debt, what do we say? Make a payment plan. Make the intention to pay back all your credit card debts and all the other extravagant expenditures that are beyond your means — that you kept on piling up in this culture of debt that you are living in, where no one wants to live within their means. They want to take and live beyond their means and they end up piling up so much debt. Just education alone is such a big debt, and after that, fulfilling the desires keeps on adding to that debt. So we will say: make a plan to pay it back.

Likewise, we will say: make a plan to Allah and be consistent in that. And that is what is known as qada al-umri — where a person says, "OK, I have to make up 20 years of salah that I missed. So if I have to make up 20 years of salah, I make the intention that every day for the next 10 years I will perform my daily salah and I will make up qada of one day."

So with the Fajr salah, I perform 2 rakat Fajr, then before Fajr or after Fajr I will perform 2 rakat qada of Fajr. You can perform the qada after Fajr until sunrise. You cannot perform nafl after Fajr, but you may perform fard qada. But preferably not in front of people — don't do it in the masjid. If you are making qada of your Fajr in the masjid after Fajr, then you are telling everybody that you missed the salah. And this goes against our deen, because everyone knows — or should know, we should be educated people in the masjid — that there is no nafl after the Fajr. So if somebody is performing a prayer then, the only salah he is performing is qada.

Our deen does not teach us to expose our sins. In fact, on the contrary, Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said:

Allah forgives every sinner — illa al-mujahir. Not mujahid with a dal — with a ra: mujahir. The Sahaba said: who is the mujahir? It comes from jaharun — to expose and to be loud. Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said: the mujahir is the one who commits the sin in the dead of the night but he is restless until he posts it on social media, tweets about it, takes a selfie committing the sin. The one who exposes himself and exposes his sin — this is the mujahir. There is no maghfira for the mujahir who relishes in the sin and enjoys it and publicizes it.

So we are not supposed to tell other people about our sins. We should privately — this is a very bad practice, may Allah guide our leaders and khatibs. Sometimes I have personally experienced this as a student also — on the day of Eid, the entire congregation is there. Have any of you experienced this? They say: "Who missed the Fajr salah today? Fajr was fard, and this Eid prayer is sunnah according to Imam Shafi'i, Malik and Ahmad — and wajib according to Imam Hanifa. So how can you come here for this sunnah prayer, my dear brothers, and you missed the fard of Fajr? So whoever missed the Fajr fard, let him stand up now and make the qada right now."

So people are being put on the spot — looking around, feeling so embarrassed and shy — and then they stand up and they perform. And those are just the ones who are so honest. The rest are sitting — may Allah know how many of them also missed it or how many are just feeling shy to stand up. But this whole situation is very awkward. It is not something that we learn in our deen.

Somebody passed gas in the gathering of Umar, رضي الله عنه, and he said the person should go make wudu. And someone suggested: how about we all get up and make wudu? He said: what a great idea — let us all get up and make wudu. So the person whose wudu was broken did not have to feel embarrassed.

How to Implement the Qada Plan

Anyway, the point is that you start making the intention — before Fajr or after Fajr you perform 2 rakat Fajr qada. Before Dhuhr or after Dhuhr you perform 4 rakat Dhuhr qada. Before Asr or after Asr as well you can perform qada. Before Maghrib you cannot, because that is a makruh time — when the sun is setting. There are three times when Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, prohibited that we do not perform any salah: right when the sun is rising, right when the sun is setting, and right when it is at the zenith. So right before the Dhuhr time starts we also cannot perform. But besides these three times, we can perform the qada at any time.

And with Isha, we all have to perform the 4 rakat Isha as well as the Witr, because Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said: al-witr wajibun haqq — Witr is wajib and it has to be made up if missed. We do not have to make up the sunnah prayers.

So if a person does this for 20 years, or if he does 2 makeup prayers a day for 20 years, then he will have paid them all back in 10 years. And if he consistently makes his intention and is persistent with this, then what happens if he dies and he is not able to fulfill that? We have the general ahadith from which we can make istidlal and we can deduce:

Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said the person who made the intention to go for Hajj and he put the ihram on, he said labbaik Allahumma labbaik and he is proceeding and he dies — he will get the full reward of a Hajj as a pilgrim on the Day of Judgment. The one who made the intention to become hafidh of the Quran and even if he memorized one ayah a day or one line a day but he is punctual on that and consistent with it — on the Day of Judgment he will be raised as a complete hafidh of the Quran.

The Logic of Eternal Punishment and Eternal Reward

And for that matter, even jannah itself — logically, if this question is asked: if somebody obeyed Allah and worshiped Allah for 50 years or for 60 years, then why is he deserving of eternal jannah? The answer of course could be: Allah is giving him what he doesn't deserve — fadhal from Allah. But the other flip side is a more important question: if somebody disobeyed Allah for 50 years, 60 years, 70 years — maximum 100 years of disobedience — then why is he deserving of eternal punishment? You cannot just write it off and say "anger of Allah" like we said "fadhal of Allah" on the other side.

So the answer logically is: that is a period of test and trial for him to see what his inclination is. And he showed consistently for 60 years that he is disobeying Allah. If Allah says, "OK, add on another 600 years" — what would happen? He would continue 600 years of disobedience. Allah says another 10,000 years — he would 10,000 years disobey Allah. That is his fitrah, that is the way he is behaving.

Warners came — different signs came to warn him. He is not contemplating, he is not repenting, he is not changing his way. So even if he lived infinitely, he would infinitely continue to disobey Allah. So once the trial period is done and it is decided that this is the way he is going to lead the rest of his life for as long as he has a life, then Allah will put him in eternal Jahannam. May Allah protect us.

They will remain therein forever.

So likewise, if a person is performing qada al-umri with the intention to continue to perform for as long as the period is required to pay up, then Allah takes him up and does not allow him to complete it — based on his intention and his continuous practice of following through with that intention — we hope in the mercy of Allah that he will receive the reward of paying back all the missed salah.

The same thing applies to zakat. The same thing with sawm — fasting. So all of these have to be paid back to Allah. You cannot just say tawbatillah, "I didn't fast all these years" — we have to make it up. If you did not pay the zakat, you have to calculate the zakat. If you stole someone's money or took something that did not belong to you, we cannot make tawbah to Allah and think it is over — we have to return that property. If you backbited somebody, we have to seek forgiveness from the person we backbited. So these are all the means of tawbah.

Rejecting the Ruling — The Methodology of Iblis

The point I began with is: this payment plan — 10 years of salah you missed, 20 years of salah you missed — even with this explanation of how to do it, it is still not an easy task. It requires a lot of determination. Is it not so? So that is why people don't like the idea.

Now if you don't like the idea, we say: we need to accept it. Whether we can do it or not — ask Allah for forgiveness. But a new phenomenon is where we begin to rationalize it. We don't want to accept it's wrong — we want to rationalize it. When Allah asked Iblis why he did not make sajdah, he could have said, "I didn't feel like it" or "I don't like it." He didn't say that. He rationalized. He said: "You created me from fire, you created him from dirt — so why should I go down to the one created from dirt?" This rationalization — to reject the order of Allah through our own rationale — this is the total, pure, 100% methodology of Iblis.

So this is what some people adopt. They say — a very absurd question — "Give us an example of the Sahaba doing this. Can you prove to us that the Sahaba made up 10 years of qada salah, 20 years of qada salah? Where did you come up with this? This is an innovation in the deen."

The reason is the question itself is flawed. The question is so flawed because you are asking about a scenario that doesn't exist. You want us to give an example of a person who recited the kalima, became a Muslim, is not a munafiq, and then is not praying for 10 years. That scenario frankly never existed. If you missed the salah intentionally, then we have the question: would you make it up or not?

The Two Scenarios from the Seerah

We do have some scenarios. What scenarios do we have? We have the scenario where the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, and the Sahaba were traveling throughout the night and they were marching and marching and they got very exhausted and tired. Then finally the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, was asked: "Can we take a break and rest?" He said: "OK — who is going to wake us up for Fajr?" So Bilal, رضي الله عنه, said: "I'll stay awake to wake up everyone for Fajr." So everyone spread out and went to sleep.

Then Bilal, رضي الله عنه, sat facing the east where the dawn was going to break, leaning against his camel. He was sitting there doing dhikr, waiting. And then everyone was asleep — it was a sleepy atmosphere. It's like if you're on a long road trip and everyone in the back is sleeping and the passenger side is sleeping too. Same thing happened — he was in the driver's seat, and slowly but surely he also fell asleep.

Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, is sleeping. Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali — everyone is sleeping. Bilal, رضي الله عنه, is now sleeping. And the dawn occurred. The whiteness came and spread, then the redness came and spread, then finally the sun rose. When the sun rose, the rays of the sun came on his eyes and all of a sudden he woke up. He said: inna lillah, astaghfirullah. He was so embarrassed. Then he went to wake up Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم.

Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said: مَا فَعَلَ بِكَ يَا بِلَالُ — "What happened to you, O Bilal?" So he was in big trouble, trying to make it as light as possible. He said: أَخَذَنِي مَا أَخَذَكَ يَا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ — "The same thing overcame me that had overcome you, O Rasulullah." But if you logically look at it, it is not a valid excuse, because he had taken the responsibility — the Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, was trusting in him. But he said that to try to make it as best as possible for himself.

Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, said: "This Shaytan is in this valley — let's get up." So everyone got up. He said: "Let's go and travel." So they went to another valley. Then they all made qada together. So they missed one salah and they made it up.

The second scenario is in the Battle of the Ditch, which was a siege and a long, drawn-out battle — it wasn't Badr and Uhud, those were one-day or two-day battles. This was a long battle over weeks. It was a defensive battle where they had dug the trench to guard Madinah. On one particular day, the mushrikeen said: "That's it, we are going to cross this ditch." So with all their allies they put up a non-stop assault. The Sahaba were very few — they were greatly outnumbered. They were 10,000 ahzab — Quraysh plus their other allies in the tribes — and the Sahaba were only 3,000. So everyone was at his post guarding.

There is something called salat al-khawf where half the army prays and half the army is on guard, but that is when actual combat is not taking place. You cannot do salat al-khawf — half and half — during active combat. Then there is, if that's not possible, if it's too difficult, then you pray wherever you are — Allah says in Surah An-Nisa:

Wherever you are — on your horse, or standing, or on your animal. But that was not possible either. The attack was so incessant and continuous that the Dhuhr time came and the entire Dhuhr time — Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, forget about them, even Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, himself with his noble person was defending the position until the entire Dhuhr time went by and he could not pray. Then the entire Asr time went by and he could not pray. The entire Maghrib time went by and he could not pray. And then late at night they prayed Dhuhr, Asr and Maghrib — and Isha also, they didn't perform it in the beginning time, towards the end of the time they performed these prayers together in qada.

That's the only two occasions: the one journey was Fajr, and the remaining prayers were in the Battle of the Ditch. The Prophet, صلى الله عليه وسلم, was so regretful. He said: "These mushrikeen — they have made us miss the salah today."

But these extreme scenarios took place in the life of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, as an educational example for us to learn what to do in those scenarios. Those things which are not contrary to the station and maqam of nubuwa occurred on the noble person of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم — so missing a salah while having the full intention to pray is not contrary to the station of prophethood, so it happened to him himself. And other sins which a prophet could never commit — like zina, adultery, and sariqa, theft — they occurred among the Sahaba so that we would learn what the ruling would be regarding those scenarios. That is why we know what to do, because they happened in the time of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم. If they never happened, we would never learn what the injunction would be.

Conclusion — No Upper Limit on Qada

So we have these scenarios. We know: if you miss one prayer you make qada. If you miss two you make qada. If you miss three you make qada. If you miss four you make qada. But then, after that, if you miss a lot — the conclusion some people reach is: if you miss a lot, you don't have to make qada. This is a very subjective thing. If you miss a lot, what is "a lot"? Define "a lot." And what's the evidence for that number? If you say if you miss a hundred then you don't have to make it up — then who said a hundred and where did you get a hundred from?

There is no such figure. In fact, we always have to make up all the prayers that we miss — no matter what. But alhamdulillah, Allah bless the fuqaha — they did not say stop everything and non-stop be praying salah. Rather, they gave us the payback method known as qada al-umri.

So going back to the original point I was explaining: in the time of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم, the Sahaba were fully committed to the deen. They had made the deen their objective. There was no category of non-practicing Muslim — which is what the majority of the Muslim ummah has become today. May Allah allow us to wake up from our slumber and become among the practicing ummah, like the early predecessors amongst the ummah of Rasulullah, صلى الله عليه وسلم.

وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ