Fiqh For Sisters 32/44 - Doubts In Prayer, Salat Al-Ihtiyat

Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim. Al-hamdulil-Lahi Rabbi 'l-Alamin, wa as-Salat wa as-salam 'ala Sayyidina Muhammad, wa 'ala ahlih at-tahirin. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad. We have made a lot of good progress and we are going very well in the course. So today I have prepared just the rulings of doubt in Salat.

Now, maybe most of them might not be applicable for all of us, but it is better to know the rulings and to prepare ourselves. Should we have issue with Shakk or Doubt in Salat, this is what we do. Now, I have in detail spoken about someone who is inflicted with the very dangerous problem of kathir as-Shakk or waswasa [whispering]. And none of the rulings here, of course, would assist him or her in the issue of eliminating and removing their excessive doubts.

It is always very important for us to stay moderate in everything we do. We never go to this extreme or we never go to that extreme. I think one of the points that I made in the class that needs to always ring a bell is as far as Islam is concerned, even though taklif is a struggle itself, our obligations is a struggle itself. But no one said that life is easy. And what we do just gives our life a flavour, a flavour of spirituality, a flavour of responsibility and accountability. When it comes to something like prayer, it plans your day, it programs your day. It gives you injection of a spiritual routine throughout the day.

So you are forced to meditate for an amount of ten or 15 minutes, because that is what Salah is. Salah an act of worship. It is connecting between you and God. It's communicating with God. Now, if you don't have the language, or if you don't feel that connection, then there is something wrong. It is like me trying to cook rice. I put the rice in, the water is there as well, but then I don't have the salt, I don't have the enough tomato paste. I don't know how to make rice, or I put too much water, or I drain it too quickly. Or the tahadiq, the hakkaka that they have down the bottom gets too much burnt, and so on and so forth. I do have all of the ingredients, I do understand the proceedings for Salah, but there is a missing element.

And that is why there are so many ahadith that say that should one sin during the day, Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala will deprive them of the halawa, the sweetness of 'ibada, the sweetness of feeling that connection, especially when it comes to night prayers or waking up the next day for Salat ul-Fajr.

So everything is connected with everything else. Moderation is the key. You don't go all the way here, you don't go all the way there. The midway always and absolutely everything, the midway.

With excessive doubts it is always, always dangerous. It will make your life miserable. It will make you miserable. It will remove any interest in wanting to pray and worship God. Instead of you feeling that upliftments, you see it as a very big burden. You just want to get it over and done with. That is why, unfortunately, there are some people who repeat this Salah four times, five times, six times, ten times. They spend 1 hour doing Dhuhur, 1 hour, one and a half hours doing 'Asr. Because they repeat it and repeat and repeat and repeat. What kind of religion is that? What kind of Shaytan and devil is manipulating in their mind? So we need to be always careful.

There are 23 parts of doubt in Salah. Some of them will make your Salah invalid automatically. Some of them you just disregard. Some of them you see as being correct. With the parts that invalidate your Salah, that would be, for example, in the raka'as, when you have doubts in a two raka'a'a prayer automatically, if you doubt in a two raka'a prayer, automatically, your Salah is invalid.

Number two, if you doubt in the raka'as of a three raka'a prayer, where in the three raka'a prayer are you? If you doubt that and the three raka'a prayer is of course maghrib, then your Salah is invalid. Number three, when you doubt in the raka's of a four raka'a prayer, where one side of the doubt, because a Shakk means 50-50, that is what a Shakk means, okay? Because you have different levels of knowledge, you have yaqeen, which is 100% knowledge, right? Then lower than that, you have Dhann, which is speculation, and that is below 100% and above 50. And the opposite of Dhann which is going to be the least amount is wahm, which means it's going to be, for example, the 30%. If this, if this site here was, if this site here was 70%.

The next is Shakk and Shakk, which is doubt, is 50%. Now, this means that when you look at it in this particular way, underneath that you have the wahm, and then underneath that there is jahl, which means ignorance, which is 0%. Why? Because jahl is the absence of knowledge. The absence of knowledge. Now, what we are talking about, right, is this here where you have Shakk one side of the Shakk is 50%, the other side of the Shakk is 50%.

So you doubt in the raka'as of a four-raka'a prayer, where one side of the doubt is in the first raka'a, and the other side of the doubt is in the third raka'a, right? So now you are in a four raka'a prayer, you are in the third raka'a, and now in the third raka'a, you doubt whether you are in the first raka'a or you are in the third raka'a. In this case, your Salah is invalid.

Number four, you doubt. Of course, I know that you are not going to memorize all of these, obviously, but if you see the pattern, then you will be able to understand how it is. Okay? Number four is you doubt in the four raka'a prayer before finishing the second raka'a sorry, the second sajdah right, before finishing the second sajdah. And one side of the doubt is the second raka'a. And the other side of the doubt is the third raka'a. So you finished the second sajdah for the raka'a and you are doubting, am I in the second raka'a or am I in the third raka'a?

Number five is you doubt between the second and the fifth or anything more than the fifth. So you are in the second raka'a and then you say, oh, well, what raka'a am I in? I might be in the fifth raka'a. I might be in the 7th raka'a. I might have done six raka'as. Automatically, your Salah is invalid. Number six, you doubt between the third and the 6th raka'a. Now, why would it be 6th raka'a? Because you are doing it. And then you say, oh, I might have done six raka'as.

Number seven is you doubt between the 4th and the 6th raka'a or more than the 6th raka'a. So you now, are in the fourth. You are saying, Am I in the fourth or have I done two extra raka'as? Have I done? Six raka'as. Now, number eight is you doubt in the number of raka'as in such a way where you don't know where you are. You don't have any idea which raka'a you are in. You have no idea which raka'a you are in. In this case, your Salah is batil, and invalid.

How about the doubts that you disregard? If, we have mentioned this before, if you have finished one act and you have entered into the second act, you finished Fatiha, you are doing ruku' and you have Shakk. Did I recite the fatiha correctly? Did I recite the Surah correctly? Because you have gone into ruku'. You disregard the Shakk altogether. If you were doing the Fatiha and you had Shakk while doing the Fatiha, you should repeat it, or you repeat the ayat that you have a doubt in. But if you have gone on to the next, then you disregard it.

Number two, you have finished your taslim. You have finished your taslim and you have Shakk. How many did I do? That's it, too late. Time has passed. Fajr is over. The Dhuhur and 'Asr is finished. You have Shakk. Did I do four raka'as Dhuhur of time or did I do five? You disregard it.

Number four: is you have a problem of excessive Shakk. What do you do? You disregard your Shakk altogether. You overlook your doubts altogether. What do you do? You just finish off with what it is that you are praying. Did I do three or four? You disregard it and then you just carry on with the rest of your life.

Number five, doubt of the imam or the ma'moom, the person praying behind the imam. One has a doubt which raka'a am I in, thinking to themselves, and the imam corrects the ma'moon or the ma'moon corrects the imam. One way or another, both of them remind the other that they are in the second raka'a or in the third raka'a. The imam sits down and is reciting the taslim. Then the ma'moon behind the imam says in a loud voice "bi hauli-Llahi wa quwwatihi" the Imam realizes that I should be doing four raka'as but apparently have only done three raka'as. So the imam with his Shakk stands up.

Number six is, when you do doubts in a mustahab Salah, you disregard it altogether. Okay? If you are in a third raka'a prayer, and you doubt whether you did, whether you did a qunoot or not, what do you do? You disregard the doubts and your prayer is correct. Even though we say that a qunoot is mustahab but you carry on with your Salah.

If you doubt after a number of years as to whether your Salah when you were young you doubts whether your Salah was valid or not valid, you say to yourself right now: oh you know what? I don't remember but I used to rush in my Salah. I'm not sure what do I do? You are doubting. That means, you disregard your Shakk. Why? Because it's time has passed and you ignore any doubt that comes after the act.

Now, if you are kathir us-Shakk you consider your Shakk or you look into your Shakk or you act upon your Shakk if you are there at the time, right? But if you have passed that right, then it's something that you need to disregard.

As for the doubts that are valid, or we should say doubts that would not create any problem for your Salah. Number one, doubt. You doubt between the second and the third raka'a after raising your head from the second sajdah your Salah is correct. You doubt between the second and the fourth after raising your head from the second sajdah. Doubt.

Number three, doubt between the second and the third and the fourth after you raise your head from the second sajdah. Number four: you doubt whether you are in your forth raka'a or your fifth raka'a after you raise your head from the second sajdah. Number five, you doubt between the third and the fourth in any place in your Salah. Number six, you doubt between the fourth and the fifth while you are standing up doing qiyam. Same thing with number seven. But in the third and the fifth same thing with number eight. But in the fifth and the 6th and in the 9th, you doubt between the third and the fourth and the fifth while you are in qiyam. Okay?

These will keep your Salah as valid. But what you need to do is you need to do one of these. And that is, you pray a raka'a of ihtiyat, Salat ul-ihtiyat. Salat ul-ihtiyat means you pray the substitute raka'as based on what you are doubting. Salat ul-ihtiyat is, you substituting the raka'as for, you substituting the raka'as that you missed out with whatever number you need to do.

So, let's say you have Shakk between the third and the fourth raka'a. What do you do? You do one raka'a of Salat ul-ihtiyat the way you pray Salat ul-ihtiyat is you recite only Fatiha, only Fatiha not a Surah. Only surat only a Fatiha then ruku', sujud, tashahhud and taslim, like any other ending of Salat, right? So, if you are missing out on two raka'as, then you pray the two raka'as. If you are missing out on one raka'a, then you pray the one raka'a it's one raka'a standing up. And if you want to do it sitting down, you can, but it will be two raka'as similar to Nafilat il-Isha'.

So let's have a look at these three scenarios and you will understand. If you have doubt between the second and the fourth raka'a. If you have doubts between the second and the fourth raka'a, what do you do? You pray two raka'as of Salat ul-ihtiyat, that's what you do.

Number two. Scenario number two. If you doubt between the third and the fourth raka'a, you are doubting, are you in the third raka'a now or you are in the fourth raka'a? You finish off your Salah, you stand up and you do one raka'a of Salat ul-ihtiyat. Okay, so you are in doubt between your first raka'a and your second raka'a and your fourth raka'a, what do you do? You finish your Salah, you stand up and you do Salat ul-ihtiyat: Fatiha no surah, ruku', sujud and taslim.

If you recite sights a word in the dhikr of your Salah or in ayat or in a du'a in a wrong way or out of sahu, unintentional mistake, then you do not need to do sajdatay as-sahu. You do not need to do sajdatay as-sahu.

Wa al-hamdulil-Lahi Rabbi al-'Alamin. Wa as-Salatu wa as-salam 'ala sayyidina Muhammad wa Aalihi at-tahirin. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad.