is waived on account of a temporary excuse, so that it is no longer obligatory or recommended, just as many obligatory and recommended acts are waived because of travel, illness, or fear. Likewise, temporary circumstances may make something obligatory or recommended when it is not ordinarily so. Thus, both the prescription and the waiving of acts of worship may be regular or occasion-dependent. This applies equally to establishing an obligation or recommendation and to waiving it. Confusion arises when something occasion-dependent is treated as regular, or when something regular is regarded as unchanging under all circumstances. Whoever understands the distinction between regularly prescribed practices and those prescribed for particular occasions will find many of these difficulties resolved.

He was asked:

Is regularly offering qunūt in the Fajr prayer a Sunnah? And what of those who say, “It is among those elements of prayer whose omission is remedied by prostration, and only a deficiency requires a remedy”?

As for the hadith,

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, continued to offer qunūt until he departed this world,”

is this an authentic hadith? Does it refer to this particular qunūt? What are the scholars’ views on this, and what evidence does each of them offer?

If someone offers qunūt because of a calamity, must he use a particular wording, or may he supplicate as he wishes?