Furthermore, if someone offers one rak‘ah of Fajr before sunrise, he has begun the prayer before the prohibited time. This is less objectionable than beginning it during the prohibited time, although the latter is permissible according to the majority. Once it is established that prayer during the most strictly prohibited times—sunrise and sunset—is not purely harmful and therefore never prescribed, but is prescribed in certain circumstances, it follows that offering some prayers at these times does not entail the harm underlying the prohibition. Were that harm present, no prayer would be permissible at those times.

That being so, the established rule of Islamic law is that a prayer—indeed, any act of worship—that would be missed if delayed must be performed within its time as best one can. This applies even if its performance entails omitting an obligation or doing something forbidden that would not be permissible if one could perform it properly within its time. Examples include praying without recitation; the prayer of someone who is unclothed, someone who is ill, a woman experiencing non-menstrual bleeding, or someone with urinary incontinence; praying in a state of ritual impurity without either a full ritual bath or ablution; praying in a direction other than the qiblah; and similar prayers whose performance is not forbidden when one is able to perform them in the prescribed manner within the appointed time. Nevertheless, one must perform the prayer within its time despite these deficiencies, lest it be missed, even if one could perform it fully after its time has passed.

It is thus clear that observing the appointed time of prayer takes precedence over all its other obligations. The same applies to voluntary prayer: if someone can pray only while unclothed, facing a direction other than the qiblah, or suffering from urinary incontinence, he should pray just as