that no prostration is required of him.

If someone forgets to give the salām and actually rises to his feet—whether praying alone or behind an imām—then remembers while still standing where he is, he should return, pronounce the takbīr, sit, recite the tashahhud, give salām, and afterwards perform the two prostrations of forgetfulness. Should he not recall the omission until he has moved away or his ablution has been broken, he must repeat the prayer.

When this lapse occurs in a voluntary prayer and he has stood for a third cycle, he should go back so long as he has not yet settled into the bowing position, and then perform the prostrations after the salām. If he has already reached tranquillity in the bowing, he continues until he completes four cycles and then makes two prostrations before the salām, for two oversights have combined in his case: he omitted the salām after the first two cycles and he added the last two cycles. This is the report transmitted by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and others from Mālik.

Ibn al-Qāsim, however, said that if he has become settled in the bowing he should continue and prostrate after the salām, yet the sound position is the one related by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam.

Whoever, while following an imām, forgets the two prostrations of forgetfulness should perform them afterwards, and nothing further is required of him.

If a worshipper omits one prostration from every cycle of his prayer and only realises this while seated for the tashahhud—having thus prayed four cycles with just four prostrations—he should, while still seated, make a single prostration. With it he completes his final cycle, treats that cycle as his first, and on that basis completes the rest of his prayer. He then performs the prostrations of forgetfulness after the salām. Some have said that these prostrations should be made before the salām; and if, instead of offering that single prostration, he were simply to add another full cycle, it would still be acceptable.

Anyone constantly plagued by doubt is not obliged to act upon it; rather, he should disregard such doubts. Even so, if he were to make two prostrations after the salām, that would be preferable in our view,