Salah al-Qada (Fulfilling Missed Ritual Prayers)

Performing fardh and wajib ritual prayers –which have prescribed times (Nisa, 4/103) - outside of their times is called qada. Deliberately abandoning salah under normal situations like travelling and busy times is considered a great sin. If one abandons salah without a valid excuse like falling asleep or fainting, seeking forgiveness from Allah (swt) and making up for the missed salah is required.  In exceptional situations which people cannot control like sleeping and fainting, or when there is a threat from an enemy or when a doctor is in an urgent and long surgery; one performs ritual prayers as brief as possible. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) said the following about this: “If any one of you forgets a prayer or sleeps and misses it, let him pray it when he remembers it…”  (Sahih Bukhari, Mawaqit, 37; M1566 Sahih Muslim, Masajid, 314)

Making up missed fardh prayers is fard, making up missed wajib prayers is wajib.  One cannot perform qada for missed sunnah ritual prayers. Someone who has many missed prayers should make up those prayers by doing qada instead of nafilah prayers other than the emphasized sunnah. One may intend for the qada ritual prayer by saying “I intend to perform the fardh morning/noon etc. ritual prayer which I missed”.

“My Lord, make me an establisher of prayer, and [many] from my descendants. Our Lord, and accept my supplication.”  (Ibrahim, 14/40)