Prayer: Fixing Forehead Obstruction During Sujūd: What’s the Ruling, and Are Past Prayers Affected?

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Imam Khamenei

Prayer: Fixing Forehead Obstruction During Sujūd: What’s the Ruling, and Are Past Prayers Affected?

English:

Question #491:

A woman after putting her head on the turbah realizes that her forehead is not in complete contact with it due to her scarf or the like. So she raises her head and places it again after having removed the hindrance. What is the ruling on this issue? Moreover, if this last action of hers is counted as a separate prostration, then what becomes of the prayers that she has done (in this manner)?

Answer #491:

She is not allowed to raise her head. Rather, it is obligatory for her to reposition her forehead or pull out the barrier which separates her forehead from turbah until contact, by the area of the tip of a finger as a minimum, is made with the turbah without raising the head from the ground. Now if she raised the forehead — to put it again on the turbah — absent-mindedly or out of ignorance and she did so only in one of the two prostrations of each rak‘ah, then her prayer is correct and there is no need to repeat it. But if the action was done on purpose or it was done in both prostrations of a single rak‘ah, then her prayer is void and it is obligatory for her to repeat it.

-Imam Khamenei, Practical Laws of Islam, Importance and Conditions of Prayer