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What is the jurisprudential interpretation of the apparent contradiction between the Hanbali school's ruling that whoever abandons prayer is an apostate and the simultaneous obligation upon him to make up missed prayers, given that an apostate is not required to repeat prayers after embracing Islam? And with which missed prayers should I begin: the prayers missed since puberty (3.5 years) or the prayers I have recently neglected, bearing in mind that I follow the Hanbali school?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Firstly: The website does not adopt the view that one who abandons prayer is a disbeliever; rather, the fatwa has settled on the view of the majority of scholars.

Secondly: There is no necessary connection between the view that one who abandons prayer is a disbeliever and the issue of making up missed prayers intentionally.

Thirdly: The issue of making up intentionally missed prayers is one of the major issues, and the more cautious approach is to obligate making them up.

Fourthly: When in doubt about reaching puberty, the default assumption is that it has not been reached. Therefore, you are not obligated to make up prayers for which you doubt whether you had reached puberty when you abandoned them.

Fifthly: The obligation of sequencing when making up missed prayers is a matter of scholarly disagreement. The website inclines towards the view of non-obligation (the opinion of the Shafi'is). According to the view of obligation (which is the relied-upon position of the Hanbali school), you must make up what you missed in chronological order, the first then the first. However, the Hanbalis waive the requirement of sequencing in cases of forgetfulness or fear of missing the time of the current prayer.

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

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