Can I Follow Ibn Hazm and Ibn Taymiyya Instead of Making Up Fifteen Years of Prayers?

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

For about fifteen years, I sometimes did not pray, sometimes prayed without wudu or ghusl, and sometimes prayed to be seen. I have recently repented and now keep my five daily prayers. Must I make up fifteen years of prayers? I do not know how many were valid. Can I follow Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Hazm, who held that repentance is enough? I do not want to meet Allah having taken the easy way out, but around 27,000 prayers feels beyond me.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

Your repentance and return to the obligatory prayers are a gift from Allah, and seeing your other sins in a new light is a sign that the repentance is real.

In the Shafiʿi school, and in all four schools, every obligatory prayer you neglected or prayed without the required purification must be made up, and our school requires it without delay. What you owe is likely far fewer than 27,000 prayers.

Making Up the Prayers Is Agreed Upon

Imam Nawawi (Allah have mercy on him) records the consensus (ijmaʿ) of the recognized scholars that anyone who deliberately leaves a prayer must make it up. Ibn Hazm (Allah have mercy on him) dissented, and Imam Nawawi judges his view contrary to consensus and unsupported by the evidence. [Nawawi, al-Majmuʿ] Imam Ibn Taymiyya (Allah have mercy on him) later took a similar position. The four schools stand united on this, and their agreement is what you follow. A view that departs from the consensus of the scholars is not one a Muslim may adopt, and the Hanbali school itself, to which Imam Ibn Taymiyya belonged, requires the makeup; Shaykh Faraz Rabbani’s answer below sets out the evidence. Your fear of choosing the easy way is a good fear to have, as long as it is grounded in knowledge.

The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Whoever forgets a prayer or sleeps through it, its expiation is to pray it when he remembers it.” [Bukhari; Muslim] If the one who forgot a prayer must make it up, the one who left it deliberately owes it all the more.

Count Only What You Owe

Prayers you neglected, and those you offered without ablution (wudu) or the ritual bath (ghusl) must be made up.

Prayers offered to be seen need a closer look. Imam Ghazali (Allah have mercy on him), quoted by Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (Allah have mercy on him), explains that if showing off was your only reason for praying, such that you would not have prayed had you been alone, the prayer was invalid. If you had prayed anyway and the desire to be seen was the weaker motive, the prayer remains valid, though its reward is decreased. Simply being pleased that others saw you does not affect validity at all. He also warns against invalidating worship over the slightest passing thought. [Ghazali, Ihyaʾ Ulum al-Din; Haytami, al-Zawajir] Ask yourself one question about those years: would I have prayed that prayer if no one were there?

Then make a careful estimate, counting every prayer you are not certain you prayed validly. [Haytami, Tuhfat al-Muhtaj] You mentioned that it happened sometimes, so the total is a portion of fifteen years, not all of it. My earlier answer below explains how to reach a number you can confidently rely on, and how to pace yourself.

Begin Today, Without Delay

The relied-upon position in our school is strict here. Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami rules that one who owes prayers missed without an excuse must make them up immediately, and may not spend time on anything else, voluntary prayers included, beyond what he needs for sleep, supporting his dependents, and other pressing obligations. [Haytami, Tuhfat al-Muhtaj] That is the rule our school holds you to.

For someone who cannot yet carry that, Imam Abdullah al-Haddad (Allah have mercy on him) taught that the repentant must make up what he neglected, gradually and according to his ability, neither straining himself nor growing lax, and Bughyat al-Mustarshidin records this as more fitting than requiring all one’s time, because of the severe hardship involved. [Mashhur, Bughyat al-Mustarshidin] At the least, pray one makeup prayer with each of your five prayers, and add more whenever you can. One with each prayer fulfills a full year of missed prayers every year, and two with each prayer halves the time. Continue in this manner to the best of your ability, and trust that Allah sees the effort of a sincere servant who has turned back to Him.

Allah Most High says: “Say, ‘O My servants who have committed excesses against their very selves, despair not of the mercy of Allah: Verily Allah forgives all sins soever: Truly He is the All-forgiving, the All-compassionate.'” [Quran 39:53; Keller, The Quran Beheld]

And Allah knows best.

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the late world-renowned scholar Mawlana Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), where he specialized in Shafiʿi fiqh and issuing legal verdicts (ifta). He holds an MA (Cum Laude) in Semitic Languages from the University of Johannesburg and teaches at SeekersGuidance.

Related Answers

• Making Up Missed Prayers: A Point of Scholarly Consensus — Imam Nawawi’s recorded consensus that every school obligates making up missed prayers, and why Ibn Hazm’s lone dissent does not stand.
• How Do I Calculate Missed Prayers When I Do Not Know the Number? — A method for estimating an unknown number of missed prayers, erring on the higher when unsure, so the total can be trusted.
• How to Make up Years of Missed Prayers? (Shafiʿi) — A practical pacing method for years of missed prayers, adding one or two make-up prayers alongside each daily prayer.