How do you make up missed prayers?
8 min read
Short answer
You pray it as soon as you are able, in the same form you would have prayed it at its proper time. A prayer missed through sleep or forgetfulness carries no sin, and the Prophet ﷺ taught that its expiation is simply to pray it when you remember.
If you have years of missed prayers behind you, the four schools all have you make them up. The usual method is to pair one missed prayer with each prayer you offer today, and keep going until the count reaches zero.
A missed prayer is called qada, meaning a prayer performed after its time has gone. Nobody plans for it. Sleep runs over, a shift overruns, an operation takes six hours, or there was a stretch of life where prayer simply was not happening. The ruling is the same in each case: the prayer is still owed, and it is prayed.
The clearest text on this is the hadith reported in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, in which the Prophet ﷺ said that whoever sleeps through a prayer or forgets it should pray it when he remembers, and that there is no expiation for it besides that. Two things follow. The prayer does not disappear, and there is no additional penalty to pay on top of praying it.
How you actually pray a missed prayer
You pray it exactly as it was owed. The rakah count does not change, the recitation does not change, and a prayer that is recited aloud stays aloud even if you are making it up at three in the afternoon.
- Same number of rakahs. A missed Maghrib is still three, a missed Fajr is still two. See how many rakahs each prayer is if you are unsure.
- Same intention, with the prayer named. Intend the specific prayer you are making up, for example the Asr of yesterday, not simply a prayer in general.
- Aloud stays aloud. Fajr, Maghrib and Isha keep their audible recitation when made up, according to the majority, and a traveller who missed a shortened prayer generally makes it up shortened.
- No extra prayer is added. There is no separate penalty prayer, no fasting, and no payment in place of it while you are alive and able to pray.
Missed by accident, or missed on purpose
These are not the same thing morally, even where the practical remedy looks similar.
Sleep and genuine forgetfulness carry no blame. A narration in Sahih Muslim puts it plainly, that there is no negligence in sleep and that negligence belongs to wakefulness. The one obligation is to pray it on waking or on remembering, without delay. The same applies to unconsciousness, to being under anaesthetic, and to the kind of emergency where stopping would cost someone their life.
Leaving a prayer deliberately is a major sin, and every school treats it as something requiring sincere repentance. The question scholars then differ on is whether making it up is possible at all, or whether the window that was abandoned cannot be reopened.
What the four schools say
What is owed by someone who missed prayers deliberately?
Outside the four schools there is a well known minority view, associated with Ibn Hazm and later with Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, and reported from several companions, that a prayer abandoned deliberately cannot be made up at all, and that what is owed instead is sincere repentance and a great deal of voluntary prayer. The four schools do not adopt it. Anyone relying on it should take it from a scholar rather than from a web page.
Does order matter?
Tartib means praying in sequence, so a missed Dhuhr before a missed Asr, and both before the Maghrib that is due now. There is genuine disagreement over whether this is a condition of validity or a strong recommendation, and over what happens when the backlog is large.
What the four schools say
Is tartib between a missed prayer and the current one obligatory?
For a person with years of missed prayers, every school ends up in roughly the same practical place: pray the prayer that is due now at its time, and work through the backlog alongside it.
Years of missed prayers
This is the situation most people are actually asking about, and it is the one that discourages people most, because the number looks impossible. Five prayers a day over ten years is more than eighteen thousand prayers. Treat it as a debt being paid down rather than a bill being settled in one go.
- Estimate the total. Take the date you became responsible, which is puberty, and the date you started praying consistently. Count the days in between, subtract the days you know you did pray, and multiply by five. A careful estimate is what is asked of you, not a precise ledger.
- Never let a current prayer slip while repaying. The prayer due now has a time attached to it. Protect that first, or you will be adding to the pile while trying to clear it.
- Pair them up. The common method is to make up one of each prayer immediately after praying its counterpart today, so one extra Fajr after Fajr, one extra Dhuhr after Dhuhr. That clears a full day of debt for every day that passes.
- Speed up where you can. A free afternoon, a day off, or a long journey are chances to take several at once. Some people clear a whole missed day in one sitting.
- Keep a written count. A number you can see going down is what keeps this alive past the first fortnight. Just Pray keeps the tally for you, so the backlog is never guesswork.
Immediately, or gradually?
For a single missed prayer, the answer is immediately. The hadith says to pray it when you remember, and the moment of remembering is the moment it is due. Delaying it once you are able is the thing to avoid.
For a large backlog, the schools are agreed that you should not put it off without reason, and they are equally clear that you are not asked for more than you can bear. Requiring someone to pray eighteen thousand prayers before sleeping is not a ruling anyone has held. So the practical guidance across all four is a steady rate you can actually sustain, kept up without long gaps, rather than a burst of enthusiasm that stops after a week. Consistency is the thing being asked for here, as it is in the rest of the prayer itself.
What if you are not sure whether you prayed?
Doubt about a prayer you may or may not have offered, after its time has passed, is generally set aside. If you have a real reason to believe you missed it, pray it. If it is a passing uncertainty of the kind that visits you about everything, treat the prayer as performed and move on. Persistent doubt of this sort is a known pattern, and the scholars have consistently told people to ignore it rather than feed it by repeating prayers endlessly.
Can missed prayers be made up for someone who has died?
This question comes up constantly after a bereavement, usually about a parent who was ill for a long time or who did not pray. The starting point for all four schools is that prayer is a bodily act nobody performs on another's behalf, which is why the answer here is narrower than it is for fasting or hajj.
What the four schools say
Can the living pray, or pay, on behalf of the dead?
The whole discussion turns on a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim about fasting on behalf of someone who died owing a fast, and on whether prayer can be treated the same way. What every school agrees on is that supplication, charity given in their name, and seeking forgiveness for them all reach the deceased.
The thing worth holding on to
The tone of the source texts on this is striking. There is no scolding in them. A man sleeps through Fajr and is told to pray it when he wakes. An army misses Asr in the middle of a siege and prays it afterwards. The assumption running through all of it is that the door stays open and the prayer gets prayed.
If you are carrying a backlog, start today with one. Pray the prayer that is due, then pray one that is owed. Tomorrow do the same. That is the whole method, and it has cleared more missed prayers than any calculation ever has.
Common questions
›I woke up after sunrise and missed Fajr. What do I do?
Pray it as soon as you wake, as two rakahs, exactly as you would have prayed it on time. There is no sin on you for sleeping and no extra prayer to offer as compensation. The Prophet ﷺ and his companions slept past Fajr on a journey and simply prayed it once they had moved on from that place. If you keep sleeping through it, the thing to fix is the alarm and the bedtime, not the prayer.
›Can I make up missed prayers at any time of day?
The majority allow a missed prayer to be made up at any time, including the periods when voluntary prayer is discouraged, because it is an obligation with a cause rather than a prayer you chose to offer. The Hanafi school is stricter and avoids the three short windows at sunrise, the zenith and sunset. Outside those few minutes every school agrees you may pray it whenever you can.
›How do I count prayers I missed years ago?
You estimate. Work out roughly when you began praying regularly and roughly when the obligation started for you, which is puberty, then take the difference in days and multiply by five. Scholars accept a reasonable estimate because nobody has an exact record, and you are not asked for one. Write the number down, take it seriously, and reduce it steadily rather than trying to calculate it perfectly.
›Do I have to make up the sunnah prayers I missed too?
No. The obligation is the five daily prayers and, in the Hanafi school, the witr. The optional sunnah prayers around them are not made up as a debt, although several schools consider it recommended to pray the two rakahs before Fajr after sunrise if you missed them, and the Prophet ﷺ had a practice of making up voluntary prayers he had missed. Focus the effort on the obligatory ones.
Sources referenced
- Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the hadith that whoever sleeps through a prayer or forgets it should pray it when he remembers, and that there is no other expiation for it.
- Sahih Muslim, the report of the Prophet ﷺ and his companions sleeping past Fajr on a journey, moving on from the valley, and then praying it.
- Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the reports of the Battle of the Trench, where prayers delayed past their time were made up in order once the fighting eased.
- Sahih Muslim, the wording that there is no negligence in sleep, and that negligence belongs to wakefulness.
- Surah Ta-Ha, in the words "and establish prayer for My remembrance", cited in the same hadith as the reason for praying a missed prayer on remembering it.
- Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the hadith that whoever dies owing a fast may have it fasted on his behalf by his guardian, which is the text the schools weigh when discussing prayer for the dead.
Where the schools of thought differ we have given each position rather than choosing one. For a ruling on your own situation, ask a qualified scholar in your community.
Put it into practice
Just Pray has this guide built in, with prayer times for your location, reminders, and a tracker so you never lose your place. Free on iOS and Android.