“O Messenger of Allah, I live far away and have a guide who does not suit my needs. Can you grant me a concession to pray at home?” He asked, “Do you hear the call to prayer?” He replied, “Yes.” He said, “I can find no concession for you.”

But if someone neglects this obligation, is he punished for it while being rewarded for the prayer he has performed? Or should it be said that his prayer is invalid and he must repeat it, as though he had not performed it at all? Scholars disagree on this.

His saying, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is to be understood in this light:

“When you do this, your prayer is complete. Whatever you omit from this, you diminish your prayer accordingly.”

He thus clarified that the perfection whose absence is asserted is this very completeness mentioned by the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Whoever omits any of these things has left out of his prayer something Allah has made obligatory within it.

The same applies to his saying in the other hadith:

“When he does this, his prayer is complete.”

This is supported by the fact that he commanded him to repeat the prayer. Had what he omitted been merely recommended, he would not have commanded him to repeat it.

Thus, someone who performs his prayer improperly in this way is commanded to repeat it, just as the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, commanded this man. But if he does not repeat it and leaves it deficient, should it be said that performing it is equivalent to not performing it, so that he is punished for abandoning it? Or should it be said that he is rewarded for what he performed and punished for what he omitted, such that the obligations he omitted are made up for by the voluntary prayers he performed? There is disagreement on this.

The second view is more convincing, because of what Abū Dāwūd and Ibn Mājah narrated from Anas ibn Hakīm al-Dabbī, who said: “He feared