Question: Muhammad asks from Karachi that how can we offer missing Prayer (Qaza Namaz)
if anyone has missing several prayers for many
days and he has forgotten all the days so how will he
make his intentions for all those prayers moreover when he can offer those prayers?
So the gist of his question is usually we don’t know when and which namaz we left
on which day so this is a very important and very much
asked question that how do we offer Qaza E Umri
(missing prayers in one’s lifetime) and how do we make intention of those? First of
all, you really need to do one thing that you need to make
a diary and calculate your missing prayers or at least
predict it. When did you get adult (Baalig)? After that which prayers you used to offer
punctually and which prayers you used to leave regularly?
Namaz e Jummah (Friday prayer) usually people offer. By doing this, obviously you won’t
reach upto the 100% result but at least you will have a
lump sum idea and wherever your somewhat surety goes and you need to note these are estimated
approx. Fajr prayers and these are Zohr prayers and these are Asr prayers and these are Magrib
prayers and these are Eesha prayers. Witrs are also prayers as Holy Prophet Peace Be
Upon Him said, (Arabic) Allah has added Witrs as “Namaz”
but in other Ahadiths only 5 prayers are mandatory (Farz) so it clearly shows that
Witrs are neither in those 5 Farz prayers nor as like
common Nafils. We always take careful and mandatory sides in worship first. Abu Hanifa
says and I quote that “We will consider Witr
as Farz prayers” It means they do have Qaza side as Farz
prayers have. Although they won’t be considered as Farz as only 5 prayers are mandatory and
bestowed but they can’t be ignored so that’s why Qaza (offering missing prayers) are taken
under consideration. So now you have made a list
of predicted left or missing prayers both Farz and
Witars of a year or years and you must note in diary and the reason I am emphasizing to
note in diary is that people who only believe roughly
remembered things they remain confused and it is
experimental fact! They forget about prayers how many they offered and how many they left?
So you need to make chart and write about Fajr
prayers as per days and time completely with counting,
for example: 256 or 356 or 1256 total are similarly you write of Zohr, Asr, Magrib and
Eesha with Witrs as well. Now when you start to offer
them so you need to take care about (Zawal time) means
the time before 15 to 20 minutes at the moment when sun rises and when it is full on head
and when it sets. except these times, you may
offer these missing prayers whenever you can. Or
whichever prayer you want to offer you can. It means may offer Eesha missing prayer in
Fajr and Eesha missing prayer in Fajr. So you can offer
missing prayer at any time there is no any issue or
prohibition. As now you have a detailed list of all prayers, Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Magrib, and
Eesha so now you can offer them like, Fajr with Fajr,
Zohr with Zohr, Asr with Asr, Magrib with Magrib
and Eesha with Eesha. Omit the prayers from your diary as per you are offering. This is
because sometimes, you make your mind to offer missing
prayers and after some days you again change your mind not to offer and then again you
make your mind on that so you always ignore offering
these prayers and devil (Shaitaan) gets an open way to divert your mind from this act.
So if you have that diary so you can note offered prayers.
You can also offer 5 prayers with 5 prayers as per
day and witr with witrs as per day, this is also acceptable. You may also complete all
the missing Fajr prayers at once and then Zohr etc. You
may fix 1 hour that in this 1 hour, I have to offer all
the missing prayers. It’s all depends on you how you can offer these prayers. You may
complete each of the prayer at once so you have complete
right and it’s on your will. All you must do is omit
missing prayers after offering on daily basis. Islamic scholars say, the people who are responsible
to offer their missing prayers (Qaza E Umri) so they must offer on daily basis and at least
complete one day missing prayers daily. If you can’t
do this, means you have measured that you won’t be
able to complete such prayers in your life so you can heir them and undoubtedly Allah
is merciful and He may forgive. But at least, you have
to offer 1 day missing prayers on daily basis. And we
have seen people, they have offered many of prayers in their life. There was an old person
who used to come to our Mufti Rasheed Sahab, he
was at the age of 50 years and Allah bestowed His
mercy on him and his life got changed. He completed his missing prayers and offered
them in 1 to 2 years! Whenever we saw him, he was offering
prayers and surprisingly, he also memorized Holy
Quran in just 4 months of tenure. He was a government officer, he was a busy person.
But when a person asks pardon of all his life so it becomes
very strong itself. He was very nice person yet he
used to fear from Allah very much. One day, he came to our teacher and said, I have a
fear what would happen of me at the end? Hazrat used
to console him and counsel him towards light. Our
teacher gave him permission of acceptance (Ijazat e Bait). Well it is mandatory that
you must offer a day’s missing prayers in one day. It must
be remembered that some people say that there is no
any proper prove of offering missing prayers so remember this that offering namaz in Jihaad
and Jung (war of Islam) it was not taught or bestowed
so some prayers were missing by Holy Prophet Peace Be Upon Him in Gazwa E Khandak (war
for Islam) so he offered those missing prayers later. This is an issue in our people (Ummat)
and even Umme Tamiyah said that offering missing prayers are mandatory. Some people rumored
this in 15th century that missing prayers are
forgivable and there is no any Ahadith on it, they said. Holy Prophet Peace Be Upon
Him said, (Arabic) “Hadith is for who claims” When
prayers are missing so you are claiming on them that
they are forgivable. It is very crystal cleared that whenever any prayer was missing so it
was mandatory to ask pardon and to offer that
then and there. So prayer if it is missing so you need to
offer it later on and on this, I have recorded the clip already, I won’t repeat that. A
Muslim should offer missing prayers and make intention,
I have explained you the way. How will you make
intention? You can make intention (Niyyat) in such a way that “I am offering my first
missing prayer of Fajr with this current Fajr prayer”
Same goes with Zohr even on next day also you will
use the word, first! Because the prayers which we have offered, those are now not in our
responsibility. So make your intention same in all offerings of missing prayers. Intention
is the name of heart. You can offer your missing
prayers like this so In Sha Allah they will be completed
and accepted.