Are My Past Prayers Valid If I Performed Sajdat al-Sahw Incorrectly?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Are past prayers valid if I performed sajdat al-sahw incorrectly by immediately going into sujud and reciting tashahhud twice? Also, if I mistakenly rose from ruku‘ while still reciting tasbih and continued without redoing ruku‘, does this invalidate the prayer if sajdat al-sahw was not performed?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Minimum Bow

The minimum bow one is obligated to make is for one to bend such that they can reach their knees if they were to stretch out their hands. It is then necessary for them to pause in that position for a minimum of the time it would take to say SubhanAllah once. [Maydani, al-Lubab fi Sharh al-Kitab]

If the minimum bow is reached, the obligation is fulfilled. If one did not pause for the length of one SubhanAllah, a necessary action has been left out; however, there is no prostration of forgetfulness for this act. Thus, as long as the minimum bow was reached, the prayer was valid, and no prostration was required. [Ibid.]

Incorrect Prostrations of Forgetfulness

The prostrations of forgetfulness are necessary upon anyone who leaves a necessary action in the prayer unintentionally. [Ibid.]

If this has occurred a few times and you performed the prostrations incorrectly or did not perform them at all, those prayers must be made up. [Ibid.]

If, however, this has occurred for many prayers, and being required to redo those prayers would be unduly hard upon you, you can deem those previous prayers to be valid in light that all the obligations (arkan) of the prayer were fulfilled; but from this moment on, to fix the improper understanding and method of the prostrations going forward. [Ibid.]

Proper Method of Prostrations of Forgetfulness

If a necessary action was omitted unintentionally, one must perform two prostrations of forgetfulness with the following method:

When he sits for the final sitting of prayer, he will recite the Tashahhud supplication (al-Tahiyyaat…); thereafter, he will say As-Salamu Alaykum wa Rahmatullah once to the right side. Then, he will make two prostrations, as prostrations are normally done in the prayer. After making the second prostration, he will return to the sitting position, recite the Tashahhud supplication again, and then finish the prayer as normal. [Ibid.]

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch teaches Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom Seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences.

He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he studied for three years in Dar al-Mustafa under some of the most outstanding scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib.

In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Quran and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Quranic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.