Continuation on the Inward Application of This
Because prayer contains integral acts that are individual obligations, one soul can discharge none of them on behalf of another. For anything that is not obligatory and is made good by prostration for forgetfulness, the prayer leader bears it on behalf of the follower. That means that if the follower omits or adds something of that kind, he does not prostrate for his own forgetfulness. The obligations are God’s rights, and God’s right is most deserving of being discharged.
What falls outside the obligations still has the status of a right insofar as it is prescribed. There are two kinds. For some, a substitute has been appointed, which is prostration for forgetfulness. These are acts to which the revealed law gives special attention, because the favor in them closely resembles the favor in the obligations. That is why a substitute has been appointed for them.
Others are among the servant’s rights and he has been encouraged to do them. He may do them if he wishes and leave them if he wishes. No substitute has been appointed for them. If he does them, he is rewarded. If he does not do them, he incurs no blame and does not obtain the reward that would come from doing them. An example is deliberately raising the hands at every lowering and rising.
If he intended to raise his hands, or if doing so is his position because his evidence required it, yet he failed to do so out of forgetfulness and inadvertence, he prostrates for his forgetfulness rather than for the raising of the hands itself.[91] God prescribed prostration here for the forgetfulness, not for the act that was forgotten,
Notes
[91]
(The author links prostration here to the occurrence of forgetfulness and distinguishes it from something for which the revealed law assigned a specific substitute. His subsequent discussion qualifies the statement.)
