something that was not sanctioned for them in the slightest. Thus, in either case, the inference remains valid.

Accordingly, the sound position is that a person may offer an obligatory prayer behind someone who is engaged in a supererogatory prayer. The analogy adduced to forbid this clashes with an explicit textual proof and must therefore be dismissed as faulty and of no consequence.

Hence, if you arrive on a night of Ramadan and find the people praying Tarawih while you have yet to pray ’Isha, enter the congregation intending ’Isha. If you join them in their first rak‘ah, then when the imam gives the salutation stand and pray two additional rak‘ahs to complete the four. If you entered in their second rak‘ah, then when the imam concludes rise and pray three rak‘ahs.

This is the explicit statement of Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him); although the position most often attributed to his school differs, his own declared opinion is that the practice is permissible.

To sum up:
• Performing an obligatory prayer behind someone who is praying an obligatory prayer is permissible.
• Performing an obligatory prayer behind someone who is praying a voluntary prayer is a matter of dispute.
• Performing a voluntary prayer behind someone who is praying an obligatory prayer is, by unanimous agreement, permissible.

Third issue: With regard to the type of prayer, is it a condition that the imam’s and the follower’s prayers be of the same kind—Zuhr with Zuhr, ‘Asr with ‘Asr, and so forth—or not?

A. On this point, too, scholars differ. Some hold that the two prayers must match: Zuhr is performed behind an imam praying Zuhr, ‘Asr behind an imam praying ‘Asr, Maghrib behind an imam praying Maghrib, and ’Isha