Home » Hanafi Fiqh » Qibla.com » What would be a valid excuse for sitting during prayer?

What would be a valid excuse for sitting during prayer?

Answered as per Hanafi Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Ilyas Patel

I was browsing the site today and came across Question #2069, wherein the respected scholar said that fardh prayers performed sitting without a valid excuse would need to be repeated. My question is, what constitutes a valid excuse and is my excuse valid?

I have been sitting for a few prayers (not all of them), usually maghrib and isha, sometimes asr also, for some time now. My reason is that I work in an industrial-style environment with hard, concrete floors where I am required to stand for close to 10 hours per day and routinely lift heavy objects weighing upto 100lbs. By the end of the day, my feet, legs, and knees are in some pain. I have recently purchased orthotics to ease this pain and they have been successful to some extent although I do still experience some pain.

Does this constitute a valid excuse for sitting? And if not, how would I go about making up the prayers as I do not have a solid recollection as to how long I have been doing this as I have been in this job for several years.

Answer:
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful

The most correct opinion of an excuse is that one has difficulty when standing, whether this existed before the fard, sunnah or nafl salah or appeared in the salah itself. And whether the excuse is in reality; as when if a person stands, he would fall down or in principle; as in if one stands one’s illness, injury, etc will increase, or it will delay one’s recovery, or one will fell dizzy or one will have severe pain if one stands.
In these circumstances one will sit and perform the salah. If one has bearable pain then it would be wrong to perform the salah sitting.
(Umdat al-fiqh, Allama Sayyid Zuwwar Husain Shah, Pg 204)
In your case you have to judge yourself of your condition as to whether it was as above. And one can judge oneself in this matter.
For making up salah one will draw up an estimation of missed salahs from the time you started work until now. You will perform the fard of each salah and witr. I enclose a make-up salah log for you so you can tick off each salah as you go. Though it has three months but copy as per your need. Also search the SunniPath archives for detail of how to perform the make up prayers.
And Allah alone knows best

This answer was indexed from Qibla.com, which used to have a repository of Islamic Q&A answered by various scholars. The website is no longer in existence. It has now been transformed into a learning portal with paid Islamic course offering under the brand of Kiflayn.

Read answers with similar topics:

Random Q&A