that each prayer be performed in the place in which the Sacred Law has assigned it. However, if a person forgets, is ignorant, or arrives where people are praying the night prayer while he had intended to combine by delay, and then prays the night prayer with them followed by the sunset prayer, is the required order waived in these circumstances or not?

The well-known position among our jurists, may Allah have mercy on them, is that it is not waived, although they waive it due to forgetfulness when making up missed prayers (1). Yet here they do not waive it, distinguishing the two cases by saying that combining is performance within the prescribed time, whereas making up missed prayers is a make-up: the former is within its time, while the latter is outside its time. Accordingly, if a person performs the second prayer before the first out of forgetfulness, ignorance, in order to catch the congregational prayer, or for any other reason, the combining is invalid. What, then, should he do in this case?

The answer is that the prayer he performed first was not valid as an obligatory prayer, and he must repeat it.

For example, a man intends to combine by delay, then enters the mosque and finds people praying the night prayer. He joins them intending the night prayer, and when he finishes the night prayer, he performs the sunset prayer. We say: his night prayer is invalid, because he performed it before the sunset prayer, and maintaining the proper order is a condition. He must therefore pray the night prayer again, while the sunset prayer is valid. By saying that it is invalid, we mean that it is not valid as an obligatory prayer by which one is absolved of liability; rather, it counts as a voluntary prayer, for which he is rewarded.

There is a fifth condition: that the prayer not be the Friday prayer, for it is not valid to combine the afternoon prayer with it. This is because the Friday prayer is a distinct prayer