Was My Prayer Valid If I Did More than One Sajdat al-Sahw?

Answered by Ustadh Sufyan Qufi

Question

In Witr prayer, I forgot to recite the qunut and only performed one sajda sahw. I then completed two sajda sahw after tashahhud and continued the prayer. Was my prayer valid, and did I act correctly?

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,

I pray this finds you in the best of states.

Indeed the qunut of the witr prayer is necessary (wajib) to perform. Forgetting about it entails the duty to perform two prostrations of forgetfulness after the last sitting (tashahhud) of the prayer you are performing, after the first of the final salam (the one on the right). [Shurunbulali, Nur al-Idah]

Thus what you did was not in line with what you were supposed to do as you have performed too many prostrations of forgetfulness in the wrong places.

Your witr prayer was nonetheless valid, and, because the time of this prayer has now ended, it will be merely recommended (mustahab) for you to repeat this prayer. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

The fatwa position of most of the later scholars is that if a prayer was performed with something prohibitively disliked, it is:

• necessary (wajib) to repeat within the time; and
• not necessary to repeat after the time—but instead, it is recommended to repeat.

Please see:

• How to Perform the Forgetfulness Prostration
• What Is the Ruling If One Does Not Do the Prostration of Forgetfulness?
• Should I Repeat the Late ‘Asr Prayer That I Performed Just before Maghrib?

And Allah knows best.
Wassalam
[Ustadh] Sufyan Qufi
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat

Ustadh Sufyan Qufi is an advanced seeker of knowledge, originally from Algeria, who grew up in France. He began searching far and wide for answers to the fundamental questions of life and was disappointed at the answers he found. Then he connected with various traditional teachers and gradually connected with SeekersGuidance. He embarked on his journey of learning through the various teachers at SeekersGuidance, including his mentor Shaykh Faraz Rabbani. He studied numerous texts in Islamic Law, Theology, Hadith, and other areas with Shaykh Faraz Rabbani and other teachers, including Shaykh Abdurrahman al-Sha‘ar, Shaykh Ali Hani, and others. He is an active instructor at SeekersGuidance and answers questions through the SeekersGuidance Answers Service.