Chapter: The ruling on a follower who misses part of the imam’s prayer

Anyone who fails to catch some portion of the prayer behind the imam builds upon the imam’s bowings and prostrations, but he must make up the recitations he missed. Whatever he performs with the imam counts as the final part of his own prayer; afterwards he makes up the opening part, following the procedure the imam observed.

Another opinion states that what he catches is in fact the first part of his prayer, yet when he goes on to complete it he is to do no more than what the imam did. Both positions are soundly reported from the scholars of Medina and from Mālik and his companions—may Allah have mercy on them.

Strict analogy, however, would require—according to the view that what he caught is the beginning of his prayer—that he be a “continuer” in his recitation as well: thus, someone who missed two rakʿahs of the Ẓuhr prayer would, while making them up, recite only Umm al-Qurʾān (the Opening Chapter) and nothing more. The Medinan authorities do not adopt this, though some later Hijāzī jurists have maintained it.