5 – From the time the sun turns yellow until it has fully set.

Scholarly disagreement:
The scholars unanimously agree that wholly unrestricted voluntary prayers are forbidden and invalid during the five aforementioned periods of prohibition.

They differ, however, regarding voluntary prayers that are prompted by a specific cause, such as the two rakʿahs performed on entering the mosque (taḥiyyat al-masjid), the two rakʿahs after ablution, and the eclipse prayer.

The three imams—Abu Ḥanīfah, Mālik, and Aḥmad (according to the well-known position in his school)—hold that no voluntary prayer at all may be offered during the prohibited times, whether or not it is tied to a specific cause.

Imam al-Shāfiʿī, on the other hand, allows cause-based voluntary prayers; this is also a well-attested report from Imam Aḥmad, preferred by Shaykh al-Islām and other Hanbali authorities.

The root of the disagreement lies in the apparent conflict between the hadiths: one set, by its general wording, forbids any prayer during those intervals, whereas another set, likewise general, recommends performing a prayer whose cause has arisen even if the time is ordinarily prohibited.

Shaykh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Āl al-Shaykh said: Careful analysis shows that the general wording governing the times takes precedence over the general wording governing the types of prayer. Moreover, the hadiths of prohibition have themselves been qualified by exceptions—such as a missed obligatory prayer, a prayer delayed because of sleep, or a voluntary prayer being made up—thereby weakening the force of any further particularization based on them.

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī stated: Permitting cause-based prayers during the forbidden times is more persuasive than forbidding them, because these prayers lapse once their causes lapse, unlike completely unrestricted voluntary prayers.

The scholars have also differed as to whether the prohibition begins at the break of dawn or only after the dawn (Fajr) prayer: