Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
When a person abandons prayers for a number of years and then repents and performs them regularly, it is not necessary for him to make up the prayers that he missed.
Answering your question, Sheikh `Abdullah ibn Jibreen, the late prominent Saudi Muslim scholar, stated:
When a person abandons prayers for a number of years and then repents and performs them regularly, it is not necessary for him to make up the prayers that he missed.
If that were a condition, it would make many people flee from repentance itself. However, the repenting person is to perform the prayers regularly in the future and to increase his voluntary prayers, acts of obedience, good deeds, getting closer to Allah and his fear of Allah.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.