Is a prayer deliberately left until its time has passed made up?

This is one of the best-known questions on prayer in which Ibn Hazm the Zahiri stands apart from the majority of jurists: all agree, he reports, that one who forgot, slept or was drunk prays the prayer once the excuse ends; they differ over one who deliberately left it until its time passed. Abu Hanifa, Malik and al-Shafi'i require him to make it up; Ibn Hazm holds that he can never make it up. ^{3 1}

In the preceding question Ibn Hazm lays down that whoever was drunk until the time of a prayer passed, or slept through it or forgot it, must pray it, citing Abu Qatada's report: "There is no negligence in sleep; negligence is only in waking; so if one of you forgets a prayer or sleeps through it, let him pray it when he remembers it"; all of this, he says, is certain consensus. ³ To the objection that he thereby allows them to pray after the time, he answers that for them the time of the prayer stays open and does not end, since they are not sinners in delaying it to whenever they pray it. ⁴

Ibn Hazm reports that Abu Hanifa, Malik and al-Shafi'i said the prayer is made up after its time, and that Malik and Abu Hanifa said that one who deliberately left one or more prayers prays them before the current prayer if they number five or fewer, whether or not the current prayer's time runs out, and begins with the current prayer if they are more than five. ¹ He notes that they treat the deliberate abandoner by analogy with the forgetful. ⁵ The editors add in a note, from al-Nawawi's al-Majmu', the Shafi'i argument from Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him)'s report that the Prophet ﷺ ordered the man who had intercourse by day in Ramadan to fast a day with the expiation in place of the day he spoiled deliberately, and the point that if making up is due from one who left something forgetfully it is due all the more from one who left it deliberately. ⁶

Ibn Hazm says that one who deliberately left a prayer until its time passed can never make it up, so he should do much good and much voluntary prayer to weigh down his scale, and repent and ask forgiveness. ¹ He argues from al-Ma'un 4–5, which threatens woe to the heedless in prayer, and Maryam 59, which threatens those who neglected it: if the deliberate abandoner could still catch the prayer after its time, the woe and ruin would not apply to him, just as they do not apply to one who delays it to the end of its time. ¹ God, he says, gave each prayer a time fixed at both ends, so there is no difference between praying it before its time and after it, both being outside the time; and making up is the imposition of a law, which belongs to God alone through His Messenger. ^{1 7}

He asks his opponents whether the prayer they order is the one God ordered or another: if it is the same, the deliberate abandoner has committed no sin; if another, they have ordered what God did not. He also asks whether delaying it was obedience or disobedience: if disobedience, it is absurd for disobedience to stand in for obedience. ⁷ He divides God's commands into three: a command tied to no time, such as jihad, the lesser pilgrimage or charity, which counts whenever performed; one with a fixed start and no end, such as zakat, which does not count before its time and never lapses after it; and one fixed at both ends, such as prayer, the pilgrimage and the Ramadan fast, which counts neither before nor after its time. His opponents agree that the pilgrimage does not count outside its time and fasting does not count at night, so, he asks, on what basis do they allow it for prayer? ⁴

He rejects the analogy with the forgetful: all analogy is void for him, and even if it were valid this one would be void, since those who use analogy do not compare a thing with its opposite, and deliberateness is the opposite of forgetting, as disobedience is the opposite of obedience. ⁵ He also cites the hadith "whoever misses the afternoon prayer, it is as if he has been robbed of his family and wealth": what is missed cannot be caught, and the whole community agrees in saying that a prayer has been missed once its time is out. ²

Ibn Hazm counts among those who held his view Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Salman, Ibn Mas'ud, al-Qasim ibn Muhammad, Budayl al-'Uqayli, Muhammad ibn Sirin, Mutarrif ibn 'Abd Allah, 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz and others (the scanned text has a gap at the start of this list). ² He relates that Ibn 'Umar told a man reading a scroll that there is no prayer for one who does not pray the prayer in its time; that 'Umar said in his sermon at al-Jabiya that the prayer has a time God made a condition, without which it is not sound; and that Salman said the prayer is a measure: whoever gives full measure is given full measure, and whoever gives short measure knows what was said of those who give short measure. ⁸ He relates that Ibn Mas'ud explained guarding the prayer as keeping its times, saying that leaving it altogether is unbelief, and that Ibn Sirin said one who prays before the time is like one who prays after it. ⁹ He also relates that al-Qasim ibn Muhammad, when the Umayyads delayed the prayer, prayed at home and then prayed with them, and that 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz explained "neglecting the prayer" as delaying it past its time; the editors point out a clear gap in the chain of this last report. ¹⁰

He notes that 'Umar, 'Abd al-Rahman ibn 'Awf, Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abu Hurayra and other Companions are reported to have held that whoever deliberately leaves a single obligatory prayer until its time passes is an apostate unbeliever, and that the Hanafis and Malikis do not require an apostate to make up prayers whose time has passed; he concludes that these Companions too would not require the deliberate abandoner to make it up. ^{11 12}

Ibn Hazm says God gave no excuse for delaying a prayer past its time, not in battle and fear, nor in grave illness or travel: the prayer of fear is prayed in its time in two groups, and the sick pray sitting or lying on one side, with dry ablution or without it if they cannot; so on what basis is the deliberate abandoner allowed to delay it and then told that it counts after the time? ¹² He rejects the argument from the Prophet's praying the noon and afternoon prayers after sunset on the day of the Trench, holding that deliberate abandonment cannot be ascribed to him. ^{12 6}

The schools' views are given here only as Ibn Hazm and the editors of his edition report them; they have not yet been added from the schools' own books, nor the position of later scholars who agreed with Ibn Hazm.