Making Up the Prayers Missed in Childhood

Question: I keep up the prayer at its appointed times—praise be to Allah—but I want to make up what I left off when I was young. In other words, I have been performing two prayers at every prayer time. Is what I am doing correct? If not, what must I do?

Answer: If by “young” you mean the stage before puberty, then at that time no prayer was obligatory for you and you have nothing to make up.

If, however, you mean the period after puberty and you used to leave the prayer deliberately, then the sound position of the scholars is that whoever deliberately abandons the prayer falls into disbelief. Should he repent to Allah with a sincere repentance and then keep up his prayers, he is not required to make up what he missed while willfully neglecting them, because, on the correct view, he was not upon Islam at that point. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Between a servant and disbelief is the abandonment of the prayer,” and he ﷺ also said, “The covenant that distinguishes us from them is the prayer; whoever abandons it has committed disbelief,” along with other evidences on the subject.

In short: what is incumbent upon you, as we see it, is to repent to Allah Most High and to persevere in performing the obligatory prayers at their proper times; this, Allah willing, will expiate what has passed.

Question: In a situation where a person is actually required to make up the missed prayers—other than the case just discussed—should he make them up in the manner our brother mentioned, by performing an additional prayer after each obligatory prayer or one like it?