Salaah

Q: I am confused on how to proceed with missed prayers. I am very ashamed of my past as I missed a ton of prayers due to laziness and ignorance. I have repented and I am trying to not miss any more prayers. I have been given 2 different instructions regarding the missed prayer.

1. All missed prayers should be made up with Qadha. One should calculate estimate of all prayers missed and offer qadha as much as one can.

2. It is not necessary to make up the missed prayers as Qadha as since prayer has a set time and once the time limit for the prayer has gone it cannot be done. One should repent and pray more sunnah prayers such as tahajjud and sunnahs of the fard prayers.

Which one is correct? Most people who gave me advice have advised 2 and quoted Al-Muhalla, 2/235.

Q: A woman completes her haidh at home but only has a ghusl after reaching her destination which is muaafir distance. Will she read salaah as a musaafir or not?

Q: How does one know when to repeat salah if a mispronunciation occurs, e.g. does pronouncing ملحق at the end of dua e qunoot as ملهق, require one to repeat? I.e. Using smalll haa instead of big haa.

Q: My son has seen a girl in our town and is interested in proposing to her. He would like to do it the correct way by approaching the parents to ask her hand.

However, he would like to first make Istikhara to see if she is a suitable spouse. As his parents, we feel she would be a good match as she is a homely girl who doesn't gallivant the streets and keeps to herself.

Please provide us with the Istikhara dua or namaaz that he can read in order for him to make his decision.

Q:

1. Should a muqtadee say the takbeers when moving with the imam or straight after the imam, if he did so after the imam would the salaah be valid?

2. Should the muqtadee say the tasmee and tahmid or only the tahmid? If he did both would the salaah be valid?

Q: In a Masjid where there is one hall but men and women pray side to side but women are in a space next to the men separated by a wall and a divider and there is a gap of a more than a space a person can stand in between the men and women. If in this set up, some women on their side end up being ahead of men on the men’s side, would the prayer of the men they are ahead of or on the same line on be invalidated, would anyone’s prayer be invalidated?

Q: Can I combine my prayers? I have a urine condition where if I go to the toilet, then after a few minutes, I feel that there is a drop of urine coming out.

Due to this condition, I try to not go to the toilet in the daytime so that I can perform my prayers, but it is a painful process to suppress your need to relieve yourself.

Can I combine my Zohr and Asr prayers and then perform the Esha prayer with Maghrib?

Q: Please advise on qadha and nafl salaah. I have many qadha salaah to make up and have started performing my qadha salaah after every fardh salaah.

Alhamdulillah, I am also in a habit of waking for tahajud and use this opportunity to make dua and perform qadha salaah too.

I am curious about nafl salaah. Allah advises us to seek His assistance through patience and salaah. With so many outstanding qadha salaah, I feel ashamed to perform nafl salaah imploring Allah's assistance, even though I am in great need of Allah's help.

I have received conflicting advises regarding this. My brother (who is becoming an aalim- 5th year) advised that I should use the hours of tahajud to perform nafl salaah. An aalima that I'm close to, advised that I should payback my qadha as a matter of priority.

What I have been doing since, is using the opportunities where one might perform nafl salaah to perform qadha salaah, for example tahajud, salaatud Duha. And for instance, instead of performing salaatul Hajaat, I'd perform qadha salaah and make the dua of Salaatul Hajaat.

Q: I experience constant doubts in salaat and I am currently combatting this. At the moment, due to work, I have to pray my isha, asr and maghrib when I get home in the evening. When I finish my prayers I doubt whether I have prayed asr for example and that I have maybe accidentally skipped this. I have no recollection that gives me complete certainty that I have prayed it or that I haven’t prayed it. But it can be said that because I have gotten to the end of praying all three prayers, it is likely that I did not miss it and this is just doubt being planted in my head. As I suffer from constant doubts is it permissible to ignore the doubt and deem asr to have been prayed, even if in reality (but unknown to me) my doubt is correct and I did not pray Asr?

Q: I woke up with my alarm fajr time then I saw that there was some time for Fajr salah to end. So I decided to sleep for some time or close my eyes for some time then wakeup and pray Fajr salah but when I closed my eyes I was getting too sleepy so I said to myself and also thought that if I close my eyes or sleep for some time Fajr time will be over but my intention was to pray salah on time. So later I woke up after the time was over...

I was so sad that I woke up after the time finished. This happened for the first time with me and it was never my intention to miss the salah. After waking up after the was time over, I prayed Fajr so is my Fajr valid?

I am so worried. I was sure that if I will sleep I will wake up after Fajr time but my intention was to wake up and pray in time and I slept to get up after some minutes but unfortunately I didn't wake up. I never wanted to miss the salah.