Making Up Missed Prayers: When Order Is Required or Waived

1. Tartib: The Required Order

When a person has only a small number of missed obligatory prayers, the source requires order (Tartib):

• missed prayers are made up in their chronological order;
• a missed prayer that should come first is normally made up before the current prayer;
• Witr is also included in the ordering relationship with Isha, although it is not counted among the six Fard prayers used for the numerical limit discussed later.

This is not merely an etiquette; it can affect the validity of the current prayer in the stated Hanafi rule.

2. The 3 Reasons Order Is Waived

The source gives 3 principal reasons Tartib is waived:

1. Time becomes too narrow to make up the missed prayer and still perform the current prayer in its proper time. The source gives this as the correct view, while the footnote records a later discussion over whether absolute time or preferred time is the decisive measure.
2. Forgetfulness — the person performs the current prayer without remembering the missed one.
3. Six missed Fard prayers — when six Fard prayers are due, the numerical rule removes the ordering requirement.

Witr does not count as one of these six, even though its order relative to Isha remains a separate issue.

3. Once Order Falls because of Six, It Does Not Simply Return

If Tartib was waived because six Fard prayers had accumulated, the source says it does not automatically return merely because the person later makes up some prayers and the remaining number falls below six.

The source also gives the correct view that a newly missed prayer does not simply restore the old ordering requirement after the previous six-prayer state had already removed it.

So the six-prayer rule changes the person's ordering status; it is not recalculated from zero after every individual Qada.

4. Suspended Validity: Fasad Mawquf

A technical Hanafi rule applies when a person remembers an earlier missed prayer but still performs later current prayers before making it up.

Their Fard validity can remain suspended rather than being immediately and finally decided.

The source's example is:
• an earlier Fajr is missed;
• while remembering it, the person performs later prayers;
• if enough later Fard prayers accumulate so that Tartib drops before the original missed Fajr is made up, those later prayers become valid;
• if the original missed Fajr is made up before that suspension is resolved, the previously suspended prayers lose their Fard status and must be repeated as Fard.

This is an advanced rule; the important point is that 'out of order' is not always resolved by a simple instant-valid/instant-invalid formula.

5. How to Intend Many Missed Prayers

When many prayers have been missed, the source requires enough identification to know which obligation is being paid.

A practical method is to intend:
• the first Zuhr still owed, or
• the last Zuhr still owed,

and similarly for the other prayers.

This avoids needing to remember an exact calendar date for every old missed prayer while still giving the intention a definite target.

6. Do Not Count Witr among the Six Fard Prayers

A frequent counting mistake is to treat Witr as the sixth prayer in the numerical rule.

The source explicitly excludes Witr from the count of six Fard prayers that drops Tartib.

At the same time, Witr is not irrelevant: the ordering relationship between Isha and Witr remains legally significant in its own place.

So:
• Witr affects ordering;
• Witr does not supply one of the six Fard slots.

7. Historical Note on Ignorance of the Rules

The source also records a classical historical case concerning a new Muslim in a territory where the rules of Islam were not accessible in the way they were in a Muslim legal environment.

The point is source-specific excusable ignorance. It should not be converted into a blanket modern rule that anyone who did not ask about prayer automatically has no duty of Qada.