three units, he should add a fourth, give the salām, and the prayer is thereby converted into a valid supererogatory act. Even if, as some have alleged, it were to “collapse” and become null, he would still not be required to add yet another unit—just as one who loses his ablution after completing a single unit is not told to attach an additional unit.

A further indication of this within Mālik’s school is his ruling concerning someone who, while already engaged in prayer, remembers numerous missed prayers—more than the prayers of an entire day and night. He said that the prayer presently being performed does not collapse; it remains sound, the worshiper continues to the end, it fulfils his obligation, and he then makes up the prayers he has remembered after finishing.

It is likewise reported from Mālik that if an imam remembers one missed prayer—or more, up to five—while leading the congregation, he should step aside and appoint a deputy, exactly as a person who breaks his ablution would do; nothing is incumbent upon the one who takes his place.

In our estimation, the decisive consideration here is the order of performance, because the missed prayer and the prayer whose time has already begun are like two prayers being caught up within the same time; therefore one must begin with the earlier of the two. According to them, however, maintaining sequence is not obligatory when the missed prayers exceed the span of a day and a night; whatever exceeds that is treated as though it belonged to that day.

The upshot of Mālik’s position—may Allah have mercy on him—is that keeping the proper order among forgotten prayers is recommended, not compulsory; Allah knows best.

Mālik and his associates unanimously hold that if a person, while in prayer, recalls one, two, or three missed prayers, he must break off in the manner we have described. The same applies if he remembers a like number of missed prayers at the very end of the time of the current prayer: he must start with the missed ones, for in this respect they are treated as a single prayer. But if the missed prayers are many—more than the prayers of a full day and night—he begins with the prayer of the present time, and the prayer in which he remembered them is not invalidated. This also shows that