That brief span suffices only for the prayer peculiar to it; whoever finds more time than that is deemed to have reached both prayers together—or the ruling of that shared interval. Mālik therefore fixed the end of the exclusive time for the Afternoon Prayer at the length of one rakʿah before sunset, and he followed the same method for the joint time of Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ.
He sometimes allotted the exclusive portion there to Maghrib, saying: it is the duration of three rakʿahs before daybreak. At other times he assigned it to the later prayer, as he had done with ʿAsr, saying: it is the span of four rakʿahs—and this, he held, is the sound analogy—while the extreme limit of that interval is one rakʿah before dawn.
Al-Shāfiʿī, by contrast, set a single boundary for the end of every shared interval: the attainment of one rakʿah before sunset for Zuhr and ʿAsr together, and likewise one rakʿah before the break of dawn for Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ together. Another report from him reduces the measure to no more than one opening takbīrah: that is, whoever manages even the initial “Allāhu akbar” before sunset becomes liable for both the Noon and the Afternoon Prayers.
Abū Ḥanīfah concurs with Mālik that, for those in pressing circumstances, the final bound of ʿAsr is the space of one rakʿah before sunset; but he does not agree with the notion of shared and exclusive times.
The reason for the disagreement between Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī lies in whether affirming a joint time for two prayers entails that each possesses both an exclusive interval and a shared one, or whether it merely establishes a single joint interval. Al-Shāfiʿī contends that the concession to combine proves only the existence of a shared time and nothing more. Mālik, however, draws an analogy between the shared time allowed out of necessity and the shared time in the normal, ample period: since, in his view, the extended time for Zuhr and ʿAsr consists of both a common span and an exclusive span, the same must hold in times of necessity. Al-Shāfiʿī does not agree that Zuhr and ʿAsr share the extended period; hence, their dispute here—Allah knows best—derives from that earlier difference. Reflect on this, for it is evident. Allah knows best.
Issue Three
With regard to these intervals—namely, the times of necessity—the jurists agree that they apply to four classes of people:
- a menstruating woman who becomes pure within one of these intervals or begins her menses therein before praying;
- a traveller who remembers a prayer during one of these intervals while resident, or a resident who remembers it while travelling;
- a child who comes of age within the interval; and
- a disbeliever who embraces Islam.
They differed about the unconscious person. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī treat him like the menstruating woman with respect to these times, because they do not obligate him to make up a prayer whose time has already passed. Abū Ḥanīfah obliges him to make up the prayers if they number fewer than five; whenever he regains consciousness, he must perform them. According to the other jurists, if he recovers during a time of necessity, the prayer of that time becomes obligatory for him; if he does not recover within it, no prayer is required. The detailed ruling on the unconscious person will be discussed later.
They likewise agree that if a woman attains purity during one of these intervals, she is responsible only for the prayer whose time she entered upon becoming pure—