Is Making up Missed Obligatory Prayers an Obligation?
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of The Worlds, and may His peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all of his family and companions.
Missed obligatory prayer/prayers is a debt upon Muslim and making it up is an obligation, since the Prophet (PBUH) said: "pay the debt due to God, for it is the one which most deserves to be paid." [Agreed upon]. And Allah Knows Best.
What is the ruling on having brotherly ties between a strange man and a strange woman, and is the former considered a Mahram (unmarriageable) to the latter?
Such a relation between a strange man and a strange woman is forbidden in Islam because it involves forbidding what Allah has allowed by marriage, and allowing what Allah has forbidden such as looking and the like. Such a relation doesn`t render any act lawful between them, thus they are forbidden to look at each other, have a Khulwah (seclusion), and travel together.
It was found out that a man divorced his wife for the third time in 2005, but they continued cohabiting as man and wife. However, when they realized that what they were doing was unlawful, they came the Iftaa` Department in 2009 and were told that they can`t be together. What is the position of Sharia on this couple?
All perfect praise be to Allah the Lord of the Worlds. May His peace and blessings be upon Prophet Mohammad and upon all his family and companions.
Her Iddah* period starts after the third divorce. As for the continued cohabitation, it is unlawful because being ignorant about the rulings of Sharia while in Dar Al-Islam* is no valid excuse. If a baby came as the fruit of this unlawful consummation of marriage, then a judge of Sharia has the final say in this regard because lineage is a serious matter. And Allah The Almighty Knows Best.
* ʿIddah: a specified period of time that must elapse before a Muslim widow or divorcee may legitimately remarry. The Qurʾān (Sura,2/verse,228) prescribes that a menstruating woman have three monthly periods before contracting a new marriage; the required delay for a nonmenstruating woman is three lunar months.
* Dar Al-Islam: designates a territory where Muslims are free to practice their religion, though this often implies the implementation of Islamic law, whereas Dar al-Harb represents those lands ruled by non-believers
Does fasting on behalf of a deceased person permissible?
Fasting on belhaf of a deceased person is permissible, since the Prophet (PBUH) said: "Whoever dies while he still has some fasts to make up (of the days of Ramadan), then his heir (any of them) should fast on his behalf." [Agreed upon]. The previous answer is for making up missed obligatory fasts on behalf of the deceased. But if the fasting on behlaf of the deceased was for performing a voluntary acts of devotion such as fasting....is permissible as adopted by the majority of Muslim scholars and based on the above hadith as they stated "Every good dead intended to be on behalf of the deceased its reward will reach the latter." And Allah Knows Best.