Q. If a person does not perform salah for years, how does one do a makeup? Does a person let go of sunnah salah and pray qadha salah which is outstanding? What intention must make? Can sunnah muakadah be left out for qazah?

A. As far as makeup (qadha salaah) is concerned, one has to make up for missed prayers as soon as possible. However, for many this may be a difficult task to accomplish. A person may have many years of salaah outstanding. Thus, the best method would be that for each salaah the individual missed, perform a qadha salaah with the current day’s salaah. In other words, when performing your dhuhr for a given day and time, either before  or after it, perform a qadha salaah with it.

For example, when the Dhuhr has come, before one performs the given days prayers, perform a missed prayer with the intention that ‘I am performing the last outstanding salaah of Dhuhhr,’ and thereafter start the qadha salaah. One should do this for fajr, dhuhr, ‘asr, and ‘isha; for maghrib, perform the qadha of maghrib after the maghrib salaah of the given day. As for witr, one can perform it after the witr of the given day as well.

One can forsake nafl in place of qadha salaah. Regarding the letting go of sunnah muakadah, it has been stated in Shaami that without good reason, one should not miss out sunnah muakadah in place of qadah. One should try and perform both these prayers. One can opt to leave out the nafl and continue with passed missed prayers.

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If we take stock of our time, we would notice that we waste it away doing things that are inconsequential. We can use such excess time to do makeup (qadha) and/or nafl (optional and extra) prayers.

Allah Certainly Knows Best.