Dying before making up for some missed prayers
3-9-2016 | IslamWeb
Question:
Regarding Question 2622216. Respected Shaykh, I would like to know what our position is with regards to someone who has decades of missed prayers and embarks on a journey to complete Qada Umri (Qada Umri = a lifetime or several decades/years of missed prayers) but dies before doing so (still having many prayers not made up). Do we consider such a person to have had a bad ending? After all, the prayer is the first question that we will be asked about, and this person's prayers are not in order. Or do we hope that Allah will forgive this person because they wanted to make up for their prayers? I know that no one knows where they will end up, and only Allaah knows. But we usually have signs of a good or bad ending, and so I just want to know what our position is on the subject. May Allaah reward you.
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Hopefully, this person will have a good fate, Allaah willing. He had a good ending of life; all praise be to Allaah. The fact that Allaah, The Exalted, has guided him to repentance and ushered him into His obedience serves as a good sign. As long as he had done his best to make up for the missed prayers before his death, then the fact that he could not make up for all of them is pardoned, and there is no harm in that.
There is also no harm that he did not make up for these missed prayers in the correct order; many scholars held that it is not obligatory to make up for the missed prayers in order. We implore Allaah to bestow His mercy and forgiveness on this person, and you should all strive in supplicating Allaah in his favor, for he had a good final stage of life, all praise be to Allaah.
Allaah knows best.