Sixth Issue. The jurists disagreed over whether a person engaged in prayer may return the greeting of peace to someone who greets him. One group—the likes of Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and Qatādah—considered it permissible. Others forbade replying aloud but allowed a response by gesture; this is the view of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī. Yet another group prohibited any reply, whether verbal or by gesture; this is the position of al-Nuʿmān (Abū Ḥanīfah). Some scholars permitted the worshiper to respond inwardly, while others said he should delay the reply until he has finished his prayer.

The cause of their divergence lies in one question: Does returning the salām constitute the sort of speech that is forbidden during prayer? Whoever regarded it as forbidden speech—and therefore limited the Qur’ānic command, “And when you are greeted with a greeting, respond with one better than it” (Q. 4:86), by the ḥadiths that prohibit speaking in prayer—ruled that no response is allowed. Whoever judged that it does not fall under the prohibited category, or who restricted the ḥadiths of prohibition by the command to return the greeting, allowed it within the prayer.

Abū Bakr Ibn al-Munḏir said, “Whoever holds that the worshiper may neither return the greeting nor even gesture has contravened the Sunnah, for Suhayb reported that the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—responded to those who greeted him while he was praying by means of a gesture.”

Second Chapter: On Making Up the Prayer

[Those for whom making up the prayer is obligatory]

In this chapter we shall discuss: (1) the people for whom making up (qaḍāʾ) is required, (2) the manner of the various kinds of making up, and (3) its conditions.

As for those upon whom making up is obligatory, the Muslims agree that it is required of the one who forgets a prayer and of the sleeper. They differ, however, regarding the deliberate neglecter and the person who has fainted. The consensus concerning the forgetful and the sleeper rests on the Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—explicit words and actions: his saying, “The pen has been lifted from three,” in which he mentioned the sleeper; his statement, “If any of you sleeps through a prayer or forgets it, let him perform it when he remembers it”; and the report that “Whoever slept through a prayer until its time had elapsed then performed it.”