Making Up Missed Prayers

A fard prayer is a debt owed to Allah, and a missed one is not simply lost: it must be made up ( qada ). This page covers the prayer missed by sleep or forgetfulness (which carries no sin), the prayer delayed by neglect (which does), and the two special cases people ask about most: the one who abandoned prayer for a long time, and the new Muslim.

The clear case: sleep and forgetfulness

If you sleep through a prayer’s whole window, or genuinely forget it, there is no sin on you for the missing itself, but you must pray it as soon as you wake or remember:

“Whoever forgets a prayer or sleeps through it, its expiation is to pray it when he remembers it. There is no expiation for it other than that.”

Bukhari, Muslim

This happened to the Prophet ﷺ and his companions on a journey: they slept past Fajr and woke only when the sun was up. He had them move from that spot, make wudu, and then he led them in the prayer, calmly and without panic, teaching that the sleeper is not blamed — the duty is simply to pray it on waking.

Make it up immediately

The missed prayer is prayed at once, the moment you remember or wake, even if that falls in one of the times when voluntary prayer is normally forbidden (after Fajr, at zenith, after Asr). Those forbidden times apply to voluntary prayer; a missed fard has a pressing cause and is prayed straightaway.

The case of neglect

Deliberately letting a prayer’s time run out without an excuse is a major sin — far more serious than an honest oversight. But the response is the same in form: repent to Allah, and pray it immediately, then resolve to guard your prayers in their times. Delaying the fard out of laziness is exactly what the warnings about the prayer are aimed at, so do not add delay to delay; pray it now and turn back to Allah.

How to make up a missed prayer

Pray it exactly as it would have been prayed in its own time, the missed prayer keeps its own description:

Same number of rak’at: a missed Fajr is 2, a missed Maghrib is 3, a missed Dhuhr / Asr / Isha is 4.
Same recitation (jahr/sirr): the audibility follows the prayer, not the time you are making it up in. A missed Fajr made up at noon is still recited aloud (when praying alone or leading); a missed Dhuhr made up at night is still silent.

Pray them in order (tartib)

If you have more than one missed prayer, make them up in their original order, earliest first. If you missed Dhuhr and Asr, you pray Dhuhr then Asr.

This ordering ( tartib ) is required in the Hanbali madhhab, but it is waived in two situations:

You forget the order (or forget that you owe an earlier one) — pray what you remember; no harm.
You fear the current prayer’s time will run out — pray the present prayer first so you do not miss it too, then make up the earlier one. (For example, if you remember a missed Dhuhr only minutes before Maghrib, pray the present prayer in its time and make up the missed one after.)

The long-term abandoner

What about someone who abandoned the prayer entirely for months or years, then Allah guided them back? Here the scholars differ:

One view (the relied-upon Hanbali madhhab and others): they must make up all of those prayers.
The other view (Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah and Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen): a prayer deliberately abandoned with no excuse cannot be validly “made up” outside its time, because an act of worship tied to a time, done deliberately outside it, is not accepted as that worship. So such a person is not asked to count years of prayers. Instead they must:
1. Repent sincerely to Allah, with deep regret and a firm resolve never to return to abandoning the prayer, and
2. Pray abundant voluntary prayers going forward, which Allah accepts to make up shortfalls in the fard.

This guide leans toward the second view, which is the more merciful and is rooted in the nature of the act. Either way, the heart of the matter is the same: turn back to Allah completely, guard every prayer from now on, and do not let the weight of the past keep you from the present. Allah’s mercy is vast, and “Islam wipes out what came before it.”

If you are a new Muslim

A revert begins with a clean slate. You do not make up any prayers (or fasts) from before you accepted Islam. The Prophet ﷺ said:

“Islam wipes out whatever came before it.”

Sahih Muslim

Your record of obligations begins at your shahadah; everything before it is erased by Allah’s mercy. Start fresh with the five daily prayers from today. See If you have recently reverted.

Do not be paralyzed

Whether the missed prayers are few or many, the worst response is despair or avoidance. A single missed prayer prayed late is far better than leaving it; a return after long absence is beloved to Allah. Pray what is owed, repent for what was neglected, guard what is to come, and trust in the mercy of the One who calls His servants back:

“Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins.”

Qur’an 39:53