The Ruling on Making Up the Regular Voluntary Prayers

The questioner : Shaykh, which of the sunnah prayers are made up?

The Shaykh : How? Which of the sunnahs?

The questioner : The sunnah, the sunnah, the prayer.

The Shaykh : I understood, but I did not understand the second word?

The questioner : Made up, meaning, after their time has passed.

The Shaykh : Ah, so you are saying which of the sunnahs are made up?

The questioner: Yes.

The Shaykh : The ruling on making up the regular voluntary prayers, whether affirming or denying the making up, is the same as the ruling on the obligatory prayers. So, if you have prior knowledge of the details regarding making up the obligatory prayers, apply that to the regular voluntary prayers as well. If you have not previously heard or read about it, then I must explain it to you. Certainly, you will say, “Explain it, even if you already know!”
The regular voluntary prayers are tied to the obligatory prayers. If a Muslim deliberately delays one of the five prayers until its time has passed, doing so intentionally and on purpose, then he has no way to make it up, neither the obligatory part nor the sunnah part. For example, if he did not pray the midday prayer in its time while he was awake and not sleeping, but rather he was alert, yet worldly affairs distracted him from obeying Allah (Mighty and Majestic) and standing up to worship Him in the prescribed time until the next time entered, then he cannot, according to the Shari'ah—even if he is physically able—to pray the pre-prayer sunnah, then the obligatory prayer, then the post-prayer sunnah. He has no room to pray this in a Shari'ah-compliant manner, because in this prayer he would intend the pre-midday sunnah, then the post-midday sunnah, with the obligatory prayer in between. He would be praying this during the time of the afternoon prayer. How can it be the sunnah of the midday prayer, the obligatory midday prayer, and the sunnah of the midday prayer? This intention contradicts reality. He will say, “Yes, but I am praying it as a make-up.” We say that in the language of the Shari'ah, “making up” (qada') means “performing” (ada'). The meaning of making up an act of worship outside its time is a later jurisprudential term. Otherwise, making up means performing. This is explicit in more than one verse. Everyone remembers the saying of Allah (Mighty and Majestic) regarding the Friday prayer: . Does this mean the prayer was made up outside its time, or that it was performed in its time? There is no doubt that the latter is what is intended by the explicit text of the verse itself: . So, if the prayer is made up after you have heard the call, attended the remembrance and the sermon, and then the prayer , this is a term for making up in which the intended meaning is complete performance. Similarly, there are other verses, including His saying (Blessed and Exalted is He): , . The meaning is not that you performed Hajj while the people were returning. We have a saying in Syria: “So-and-so performed Hajj while the people were returning,” meaning he did not perform Hajj! The intended meaning of the verse is clear: when you have finished making up the rituals; that is, performing them in their known, Shari'ah-prescribed times; do not neglect the remembrance of Allah. Rather, remember Allah as you remember your fathers, or even more.
This distinction between the meaning of a term in the Shari'ah and its meaning in technical terminology is a very important matter regarding the texts of the Shari'ah. Because often, the texts of the Shari'ah are interpreted using later jurisprudential terms, which leads to departing from the meaning intended by Allah (Mighty and Majestic) or His Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). There are not few examples of this. I will suffice now with mentioning one example. It is one in which, unfortunately, there was disagreement among some schools of jurisprudence due to negligence regarding the fact that the intended meaning in a term that appeared in the following hadith is the Shari'ah meaning, while some understood or interpreted it with the technical meaning. For example, if a person enters the mosque and finds the imam in the second rak'ah, suppose the prayer is a two-rak'ah prayer. If this latecomer stands for the first rak'ah, does he recite the opening supplication or not? Similarly, if he enters the three-rak'ah Maghrib prayer and catches only one rak'ah behind the imam, and then stands, does he recite aloud in both rak'ahs or in only one rak'ah? The answer: There is disagreement. I will mention the reason for the disagreement to you. Some say that what he catches of his prayer behind the imam is the beginning of his prayer.

The questioner: Peace be upon you.

The Shaykh : And upon you be peace, and the mercy of Allah and His blessings.
And based on this, if he stands, he completes the prayer. So, as long as he caught the first rak'ah in the two-rak'ah prayer, when he performs the rak'ah, it is the second one, and at that time, there is no opening supplication. In the second example, the Maghrib prayer, he caught the last rak'ah of the Maghrib prayer. So, when he stands, he recites al-Fatihah without opening supplication, recites al-Fatihah and the surah, recites aloud, then sits for the tashahhud, then stands for the third rak'ah. Why? Because what he caught of the prayer behind the imam is the beginning of his prayer. This is the view of the majority, the view of the Hanafis is exactly the opposite. They say: What he catches of the prayer behind the imam is the end of his prayer, and what he will stand for from the rest of the prayer is the beginning of his prayer. Therefore, the ruling differs for them completely regarding the two previous cases. In the Fajr prayer, he stands and recites the opening supplication and al-Fatihah, and recites a surah, because this is the beginning of the prayer. In the second example, the Maghrib prayer, he also stands, recites the opening supplication and the surah, bows and prostrates, then stands for the second rak'ah, because this is the beginning of his prayer. He also recites al-Fatihah and the surah aloud. What is the reason for this disagreement, which has other branches? Their disagreement in understanding the saying of the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him): . The majority relied on this hadith, where the Messenger explicitly stated that what will come of the prayer after he separates from the imam he called “completion.” He said: . The Hanafis answered by saying that the intended meaning here is completing the prayer in the manner of making up, evidenced by the fact that there is a narration, which is actually authentic: . Here is the point: they interpreted making up here with the jurisprudential meaning. But if we remember the previous verses, we find that the saying of the Messenger (peace be upon him) in the other narration: means the same as his saying in the first narration: . The principle, as established in the science of hadith principles and jurisprudence principles, is that if two hadiths with two wordings or two narrations appear to differ, they must be reconciled. The best reconciliation is to reconcile the two wordings, which are synonymous in the language of the Arabs, and not to establish disagreement and contradiction between them. We have learned from the texts of the verses that its meaning is “then complete.” So, his saying in the first narration: means the same as his saying (peace be upon him) in the other narration: . Thus, the two reports agree in indicating the meaning. The point of this is that we must be aware of technical terms and not consider them as the original in the Arabic language by which we interpret the texts of the Shari'ah.