Missing Prayers During Travel: Should They Be Made Up as Qasar or Full Prayers?

REPUBLICA.CO.ID, CAIRO — The Global Electronic Fatwa Centre of Al-Azhar, under the auspices of Al-Azhar Asy-Syarif, Egypt, explains the procedure for making up missed prayers when a person is travelling.

This explanation is provided in response to a question from an individual who asked, “If a person misses prayers while travelling, and only makes them up after returning home, how should they perform them?”

The Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee explains that a Muslim is obliged to perform prayers on time and should not delay them until after the time has passed, except in cases where there is a rukhsah (Islamic dispensation) or justifiable excuse.

In a statement posted on their official Facebook page, quoted by Republika.co.id on Thursday (4 June 2026), the committee explained that Islamic Sharia provides dispensation for travellers in the form of allowing them to shorten four-rak’ah prayers and combine several prayers.

“This dispensation is given as a form of ease and to remove difficulties during travel,” the committee wrote.

However, scholars differ on the issue of a person who is travelling and misses a four-rak’ah prayer, and only remembers or is able to perform it after returning to their place of residence.

Should they make it up with four rak’ahs because their travel status has ended, or is it sufficient to perform two rak’ahs because when the prayer was obligatory, they were still in a state of travel?

According to the Hanafi and Maliki schools of thought, prayers missed during travel and made up after returning home should still be performed as Qasar, i.e., two rak’ahs.

They cite the hadith narrated by Anas bin Malik RA that the Prophet Muhammad SAW said: