because he is not required to refrain from it. This resembles an interruption in consecutive fasting: sometimes through an obligatory fast or an obligatory breaking of the fast, and sometimes through menstruation, postnatal bleeding, or an illness that renders one unable to fast. Hence Ahmad applied this principle consistently. If such an interruption occurred without an excuse, it would invalidate the prayer by consensus. There is therefore even greater reason not to treat interruptions in ablution with and without an excuse alike.

As for his still being legally considered to be praying, this means that he may interrupt the prayer only in ways that are excused within it. If he does something incompatible with prayer—such as deliberate speech, extensive movement, or turning his back to the direction of prayer without an excuse—he has separated its parts by an act incompatible with it, without an excuse. His prayer is therefore invalidated, just as it would be if he prayed two rakʿahs and then deliberately gave the salām. He may not simply perform the remaining two rakʿahs; rather, he must begin the prayer anew. If, however, he gave the salām inadvertently, he resumes from where he left off, as established by the Sunnah transmitted through numerous independent chains and by the scholars’ agreement on this.

The person giving the salām is merely leaving the prayer and adding to the prescribed act. If he does this deliberately, he is not permitted to do so; the only objection here is that he has interrupted the prayer. Do you not see that the sole difference between performing witr as three uninterrupted rakʿahs and performing three rakʿahs with a separation between the first two and the final one is the separation itself?

Hence they say: the two rakʿahs are separated from the final single rakʿah by a salām, or they are not separated by a salām. Some scholars of Iraq do not permit this separation, treating witr like the Maghrib prayer. They hold that the night’s odd-numbered prayer must be like the day’s odd-numbered prayer: uninterrupted, without separation. Some scholars of the Hijaz, on the other hand, permit only separation, because the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: “Night prayer