How Do I Go About Making up the Missed Prayers of the Past 7 Years?

Question: I have missed a lot of prayers for the past 7 years. What do I do Is there a way to pay for the one I have missed?

Answer: In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Expiation for Missed Prayers

There is no expiation for missed prayers while one is still alive. Rather you must calculate how many prayers you have missed to the best of your ability. Thereafter you should strive to make up those prayers.

It may seem like a daunting task but if you take a couple or a few prayers per day you will eventually finish and be freed from that responsibility.

Some scholars have even advised that in place of the sunna prayers one should instead pray the makeup prayers. For example, instead of praying the four units of sunna before dhuhr prayer, make up a past dhuhr prayer. This way one is not expending extra time making up missed prayers.

Ref: [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

Hope this helps
Allahu A’alam

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch

Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a graduate from Tarim; a student of Habib Umar and other luminaries; and authorized teachers of Qur’an and the Islamic sciences.