the mosque, he may be unable to stand, but then Allah, exalted is He, may grant him renewed strength so that he is able to stand.

What I am inclined toward—though not strongly—is that he must attend the mosque. Supporting this is the authentic hadith of Ibn Mas‘ud in Sahih Muslim: “A man would be brought, supported between two men, until he was made to stand in the row.” (1) In most cases, someone in such a condition is unable to stand on his own. He must therefore attend the mosque; then, if he is able to stand, he should do so, and if he is unable, Allah the Exalted has said:

“Fear Allah as much as you are able.” [al-Taghabun: 16]

A sick person may pray lying on his back, despite being able to stand, in order to receive medical treatment, on the advice of a Muslim physician.

His statement, “A sick person may pray”: the preposition li- here indicates permissibility. You should know that scholars may sometimes phrase something in the form of what is permissible in order to negate the notion that it is prohibited, not in order to indicate mere permissibility. Thus, the meaning is that he is not barred from doing so. In that case, this does not prevent it from being something recommended or even obligatory. There are many examples of this.

One example is their statement in the chapter on Hajj: “One who enters ihram intending Hajj alone may make his ihram an Umrah, thereby becoming one performing tamattu‘.” That is, he may change his intention from Hajj to Umrah in order to perform tamattu‘: he performs Umrah and then exits ihram after it; then, on the eighth day of Dhu al-Hijjah, he enters ihram for Hajj. By their statement, “may,” they mean to negate any prohibition; otherwise, it is sunnah.

The point is that they used the expression “may,” intending thereby to counter the view of one who says that this is not permissible. For some scholars say that it is not permissible for one who entered ihram for Hajj to change it to an Umrah in order to perform tamattu‘; whereas