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Repeating Prayers In Case Of Doubt
Traditional ulama often state that prayers need to be repeated if a mistake is made – regardless of Sajda Sahw. Here is an example: I posed the same question to this forum and to another scholar online: “Sometimes when I am in sajda sahw (second sajda), I doubt if I have sat in jalsa (between prostrations) long enough. So I sit in jalsa again, do sajda again for a third time and say my Salam. Does adding the third sajda invalidate my prayer? Should I repeat it?”
In my brain at the time I was “trying to correct” for the mistake in prayer. I feared my prayer would not be valid. The response I got from this forum was that because I did prostrations for Sajda Sahw, my prayer was valid.
The other scholar replied:
“In the enquired scenario, those prayers that have passed, have passed. In Shā Allāh, Allāh will accept them and there is no need to repeat them.
However, if this occurs in the future, then such prayers should be repeated.”
Now this last part about repeating prayers in the future makes me very anxious – like there is some type of defect in my Salah that it needs to be repeated for. Now I feel guilty and feel the need to go back and re-pray the prayers where I made this Sajda Sahw mistake. However, I am worried this will feed into existing OCD symptoms and make it more difficult to pray as time goes on.
Here is my question: What evidence do these scholars use to say that prayers must be repeated? I realize this might be a strange question to ask since the Fatwa did not come from this site. But as I have encountered the opposite opinion here – that my prayer is valid – hearing evidence from authentic sources would help me feel a lot more comfortable.
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