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What should one who frequently experiences distraction and a lack of humility in their prayer do, and what are the rulings concerning this distraction?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

If frequent forgetfulness (sahw) is a form of waswasah (whispers/obsessive thoughts), then the remedy is to ignore it, and sujud al-sahw (prostration of forgetfulness) is not prescribed for it. The chronic doubt (shakk mustankih) that one should disregard is that which occurs at least once daily. As for non-chronic doubt, the prescribed action is to build upon the lesser (certain) amount and perform sujud al-sahw before the taslim. The ruling on forgetfulness varies depending on what was forgotten. As for khushu' (devotion/humility) in prayer, it is a sunnah (recommended act), and the prayer is not repeated for its absence.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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