by eating. For such a person, the makeup fast is accepted, and he is instructed to perform it. This hadith is established as a report from Abū Hurayrah; the only disagreement concerns whether it is traced back to the Prophet. In any event, this is its meaning (1).

For Abū Hurayrah himself narrated the hadith about the Bedouin and the hadith:

“Whoever breaks his fast for one day in Ramadan, even fasting for an entire lifetime will not make up for it.”

His hadiths should therefore be understood as consistent with one another, not contradictory. This is the view of a group of early and later scholars, as well as Abū Abd al-Rahmān, an associate of al-Shāfiī. It is also the view (2) of Dāwūd ibn Alī, Ibn Hazm (3), and others.

They said:

“Our opponents have no authoritative proof whatsoever by which the dispute can be settled. Most of them maintain that making up an act of worship becomes obligatory only through a separate command, yet they have no such command here.

“Our disagreement does not concern only whether making it up is obligatory. We also dispute whether a makeup performance is accepted from him and whether a prayer performed outside its time is valid. We therefore say: Performing the five prayers outside their proper times—whether exclusive or shared, restricted or extended—is like performing the Friday prayer outside its time, performing the pilgrimage outside its time, or stoning the pillars outside its prescribed time. Time is an attribute of the act and one of its most binding requirements. How, then, can an act of worship be accepted without the attributes (4) required of it?”