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Performing Makeup’s Quickly: Validity vs. Acceptance

Answered as per Shafi'i Fiqh by Qibla.com

Answered by Shaykh Hamza Karamali, SunniPath Academy Teacher

Can you please describe the absolute minimal prayer (according to Shafi’i fiqh) which one can perform to make-up prayers quickly.

Could you provide details on whether we can omit a surah after Al-Fatiha, minimal or alternative supplications on bowing, standing, etc, and the possible consequences (I read on another post that omitting certain sunnahs on prayer makes it imperfect, but not invalid) for performing a prayer in this fashion.

Could you also describe the minimal recommended prayer that we could perform if the absolute minimal prayer is imperfect.

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

In the Name of Allah, Most Merciful and Compassionate

assalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah

Jazakallah khayr for your question. Masha’Allah it is wonderful to see that you’ve taken the big step of resolving to make up your past missed prayers. May Allah Most High grant you success in accomplishing what you have resolved and may He grant you ever-increasing  steadfastness in His religion.

You can read about the minimal prayer according to the Shafi`i school in Sidi Mostafa Azzam’s excellent summary, The Immaculate Raiment. None of the things that you mention in your question–the sura after the fatiha and the supplications during bowing, prostration, and standing–are integrals of the prayer according to the Shafi`i school. This means that if you omit them, your prayer will be valid and you will not have to make it up.

It is important to note, however, that there is a difference between validity and acceptance. It is easy to misunderstand books of fiqh and come to the conclusion that “all I need to do to have a valid prayer is XYZ, therefore that is all that I am going to do.” This is a mistake that stems from misunderstanding the meaning of validity.

Imam Ghazali explains in his Ihya that validly performing acts of worship lifts this-wordly responsibility from one’s shoulders, meaning that if you perform a valid prayer, no one is allowed to blame you for not praying and the obligation of commanding the right and forbidding the wrong is lifted from Muslims with respect to the act of worship that you validly performed. However, the whole point and purpose of worship is to express one’s utter slavehood to Allah Most High, and the Quran and sunna teach us that the acts of worship that Allah will accept in the next life will be acts of worship that are not only valid, but those that are also performed with excellence.

With respect to the prayer, hastily performing a minimal prayer that only comprises integrals results in a valid prayer. The prayer that Allah Most High accepts, however, is the prayer that one performs with reverence and presence-of-heart, which is normally only possible if one adds certain important sunnas to one’s prayer, such as the beautiful supplications that are legislated during the various prayer-postures.

The practical upshot is that even make-up prayers should be performed in a manner that is pleasing to Allah Most High. One shouldn’t be thinking during the prayer, “how can I quickly get this prayer off my back,” but rather one should be focusing on the tremendousness of the One to whom one is praying. Scholars recommend persevering in reciting a short sura after the fatiha (e.g. surat al-iklhas), the three glorifications during the bowing and prostration, the supplication of the standing (sami`a allahu liman hamidah rabbana lakal hamd) etc. and doing this in a manner that expresses one’s slavehood to Allah Most High, not a desire to be rid of worshipping Him.

This should, of course, be coupled with the urgency of making up one’s missed prayers quickly, which means that one doesn’t unduly prolong the prayer beyond a reasonable amount (such as the one described above).

And Allah Most High knows best.

Hamza.

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.

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