Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
When joining a jamaat which we have missed the first rakaat of, when the imam sits in the last rakaat for the last tashud position, do we read darood shareef as well or just the tashud as we would in the middle of the namaaz?
Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
I pray this finds you in the best of health and spirits.
In the final rakat behind the imam, a latecomer only recites the tashahhud (i.e. until “wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluh”) and no more. The latecomer then makes the full invocations in the final rakat they pray when they complete their prayer. [ Ibn Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar ]
Also: Please search SunniPath Answers (http://qa.sunnipath.com) for related answers. Search for: what does the latecomer do
Faraz Rabbani