and the Sunnah of his rightly guided caliphs. None of the four imams of the Muslims, nor any other imam, recommended this—not Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, or Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Rather, they agree that an imam’s regular practice of leading the same congregation in the prayer twice is a reprehensible innovation, and whoever does so as an act of devotion is misguided.
Their disagreement concerns only an imam who leads the prayer a second time with a different congregation. Some permit this, such as al-Shāfiʿī and Ahmad ibn Hanbal according to one of the two reports from him. Others prohibit it, such as Abū Hanīfah, Mālik, and Ahmad according to the other report from him.
Anyone who owes missed prayers should make them up as best he can. But for the imam regularly to repeat the prayer alongside the current obligatory prayer, with the congregation praying behind him, is not prescribed, even if he says, “I do this because of the missed prayers they owe.”
At the very least, this opens the way for other imams to imitate him, so that it becomes an established practice on which children are raised, and through which the law of Islam is altered in desert regions and places where ignorance prevails. Allah knows best.