with certainty, since there is no doubt that Saturday precedes Sunday. The third view is that the sequence is taken into account, but not the assignment of prayers to particular days. He therefore performs a noon prayer, an afternoon prayer, and then a noon prayer; alternatively, he begins with the afternoon prayer, performing an afternoon prayer, a noon prayer, and then an afternoon prayer, with no further prayers required.

If he has forgotten a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer, one belonging to Saturday and the other to Sunday, but does not know which belongs to which day, nor whether Saturday preceded Sunday or Sunday preceded Saturday in another week, four views may be derived concerning this case. The first is that neither assigning the prayers to particular days nor observing their sequence is taken into account, so he performs only a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer. The second is that both are taken into account: he performs a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer for Saturday, then a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer for Sunday, and then a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer for Saturday. If he begins with Sunday, he also ends with it. The third is that assigning the prayers to particular days is taken into account, but not their sequence: he performs a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer for Saturday, and a noon prayer and an afternoon prayer for Sunday. The fourth is that their sequence is taken into account, but not their assignment to particular days: he performs a noon prayer, then an afternoon prayer, then a noon prayer; or an afternoon prayer, then a noon prayer, then an afternoon prayer, ending with the prayer with which he began. All this is clear.

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The view that assigning prayers to particular days need not be taken into account is that of Sahnūn. Ibn Lubāba also adopted it, saying: “Anyone who holds that assigning prayers to particular days must be taken into account is bound to hold that, if someone remembers a prayer but does not know which day it belongs to, he must perform seven prayers, one for each day of the week.” This implication does indeed follow, and this is likewise what he must hold regarding the days of the week and any small number of prayers that entails no great hardship. Nevertheless, Ibn Lubāba’s view appears stronger to me. If someone intends, through his prayer, to make up the prayer of the day on which he omitted it, even without knowing precisely which day that was, this should discharge his obligation. This is by analogy with someone who vowed to fast on a particular day, then inadvertently broke his fast that day, and subsequently forgot which day of the week it was: he need only fast one day, intending it to make up for that day. Consider, however, someone who believes it was a particular day and intends his fast to make up for it, only to discover that it was a different day: does this discharge his obligation or not? In my view, it plainly does not. The same applies to prayer.

As for the view that the sequence need not be taken into account in this case, we have already explained that it follows from the ruling in al-Mudawwana concerning someone who performs a prayer while remembering a small number of missed prayers: he need repeat that prayer only within its prescribed time.