and must make up whatever remains. Thus, if at the very end of his prayer he is certain that he omitted one prostration from the final rakʿah, he should perform that prostration and repeat the tashahhud. If the omission was from any other rakʿah, he must add an entire rakʿah, and the same ruling applies when he is unsure which of the two cases it is.

If, while standing in the second rakʿah, he realizes that he left out a prostration from the first, then—
• should he already have sat after the single prostration—he simply performs the missing prostration;
• one view adds that sitting with the intention of the brief rest-sit (jalsat al-istirāḥa) is insufficient;
• otherwise, he should sit calmly and then prostrate, though another opinion allows him to prostrate immediately.

If, at the close of a four-rakʿah prayer, he discovers that he has omitted two or three prostrations and does not know in which rakʿahs, he must perform two rakʿahs. If he has omitted four prostrations, he performs one prostration and then two rakʿahs. If he has missed five or six, he must add three rakʿahs; and if he has missed seven, he adds a prostration and then three rakʿahs.

I say: It is sunnah to keep one’s gaze fixed on the spot of prostration. Some hold that closing the eyes is disliked, but in my view it is not disliked unless it causes harm. Recommended as well are: humility; reflection on the Qur’anic recitation and other remembrances; entering the prayer with energy and a heart free of distractions; folding the hands below the chest, the right over the left; making supplication during prostration; using the hands for support when rising from prostration or from sitting; lengthening the recitation of the first rakʿah more than the second—this being the sound position—and engaging in remembrance thereafter.

He is also encouraged to move from the place where he prayed the obligatory prayer before beginning supererogatory prayer, the best location for which is his home. When women have prayed behind the men, the men should remain seated until the women have departed. One should leave in the direction of one’s need; otherwise, to the right.

The congregant’s following of the imam ends with the imam’s salām, after which the follower may busy himself with supplication or the like before giving his own salām. Should the imam content himself with one salutation, the follower should nonetheless pronounce two. Allah knows best.