because of his sin; or he is a believer deficient in faith. Thus, he is not granted unrestricted faith, nor is faith entirely denied him.

You will always find that the middle view is the correct one. The reason for this is clear: the middle view takes account of the evidence cited by both sides, whereas each extreme view adopts some evidence and leaves aside the rest.

Thus, the preponderant view in our juristic issue is that whoever prays behind the row because the row is full, his prayer is valid.

“If he prays one rak‘ah alone, it is invalid. But if he bows alone and then joins the row, or another person stands with him before the imam prostrates, it is valid.”

His statement, “If he prays one rak‘ah alone, it is invalid,” undoubtedly repeats what preceded in his statement, “Nor may one pray alone behind him or behind the row, unless that person is a woman” (1). However, the author mentioned this as a prelude to his statement: “But if he bows alone and then joins the row, or another person stands with him before the imam prostrates, it is valid.” These are two issues:

The first is that if he bows alone and then joins the row before the imam prostrates, his prayer is valid, because his standing alone ended before the rak‘ah was completed. The apparent meaning of the author’s words is that there is no difference whether this was due to an excuse or not. The author therefore makes the imam’s prostration the decisive limit: if his standing alone ends before the imam prostrates, his prayer is valid; but if it ends after the imam prostrates, or does not end at all, his prayer is invalid. The reason is that he has not performed a complete rak‘ah alone, and the Prophet ﷺ made catching the prayer conditional upon catching the rak‘ah.