As for the one who deliberately abandons the prayer until its time expires, the majority of jurists declare him sinful and hold that making it up (qaḍāʾ) is obligatory. Some of the Ẓāhirī scholars, however, maintain that although he is indeed sinful, no make-up is required; among those who espoused this view is Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm.

The root of their disagreement lies in two questions. First is the broader issue of whether analogical reasoning (qiyās) is permissible in the Sharīʿah. Second—assuming qiyās is allowed—is whether the deliberate offender may be analogized to the forgetful worshiper. Those who argued that, since the Law obliges the forgetful person—whom it excuses in many matters—to make up the prayer, it is even more fitting to oblige the deliberate neglecter, who has no excuse, therefore ruled that he must make it up. Conversely, those who viewed the forgetful and the deliberate as opposites—and opposites, whose rulings differ, are not analogized to one another but only to their likes—rejected the analogy and denied the obligation.

The correct assessment is this: if the obligation is construed as a form of sternness and deterrence, analogy is valid; but if it is viewed as a concession and mercy to the forgetful, lest he be deprived of the prayer’s benefit, then the deliberate offender stands in direct contrast to him and the analogy cannot hold, for the forgetful has an excuse whereas the deliberate does not.

In principle, the make-up is not imposed by the original command to perform the prayer; it requires a fresh command, as the theologians have stated, because the person making up the prayer has missed one of the conditions necessary for the act to occur validly—namely, the prescribed time, which is itself a condition of validity. Delaying the prayer beyond its time is analogous to performing it prematurely; nevertheless, the transmitted texts address only the forgetful and the sleeper, leaving the deliberate offender oscillating between resemblance and non-resemblance—and Allah guides to the truth.

Regarding the person who loses consciousness, some scholars exempt him from making up any prayers whose times elapsed, while others oblige him to do so; among the latter are those who limit the obligation to a specific number, saying he must make up only five prayers or fewer. Their divergence stems from hesitating between likening him to the sleeper or to the insane: whoever compares him to the sleeper obliges the make-up, and whoever compares him to the insane drops the obligation.

Description of Making Up the Prayer
Making up an Entire Prayer

The make-up (qaḍāʾ) is of two kinds: making up an entire prayer and making up part of it.

When the whole prayer is to be made up, three matters require consideration: its form, its conditions, and its time.

Form of the make-up: if both the missed and the present prayers share the same legal description, the make-up is performed exactly as the prayer would have been performed in its proper time. If, however, the circumstances differ—such as remembering a resident prayer while traveling, or a travel prayer while at home—the jurists hold three opinions.

1. One group says he makes up exactly what is due, paying no heed to his present state; this is the view of Mālik and his companions.

2. A second group holds that he must always make it up as four rakʿahs, whether the missed prayer was a travel prayer or a resident one. Thus, if he remembers a resident prayer while traveling, he performs it as a resident prayer; and if he remembers a travel prayer while at home, he likewise performs it as a resident prayer. This is the position of al-Shāfiʿī.

3. A third group maintains that he always performs the make-up according to his current circumstances: a resident prayer remembered while traveling is made up as a travel prayer, and a travel prayer remembered at home is made up as a resident prayer. Whoever likened the make-up to the original performance therefore considered the present state and made