When Does Sleep Constitute a Valid Excuse for Missing Prayer?
The brother asks: when is sleep a valid excuse for missing prayer? This can be divided into categories.
The first category: one who slept at the usual hour without excessive late-night staying up, then slept after putting in place the means and precautions for waking up, but did not wake up — this person is excused. Because he was not negligent. He did not commit anything forbidden in staying up, and he had set something to wake him but did not wake. And this falls under the general meaning of the Prophet's ﷺ saying: "Whoever [sleeps through] a prayer or forgets it, let him pray it when he remembers it." And this falls under the narration — the lifting of the pen from him — the hadith of Aisha narrating from 'Ali as a mawquf report, and it is the soundest thing in this chapter.
The second category: staying up late and deliberately staying up without need, then just before Fajr, he sleeps. Such a person usually does not wake up, if there is no one to wake him. Such a person has been negligent in his sleep. Because staying up late is conducive to missing the congregational prayer in the masjid, and because this staying up led him to committing something forbidden — and anything that leads to the forbidden is itself forbidden.
The third case: that he goes to sleep early and takes the appropriate precautionary steps, but then wakes up for prayer, is negligent, and goes back to sleep — saying "I'll get up now" — then sleeps again after having been roused and his reason returned to him, but he keeps going back and forth, sleeping again, saying "I'll wake up now," and so on, procrastinating. Such a person has no excuse, because he did wake up and the obligation to respond to Allah's call was upon him. He has no excuse in this type because he woke up and understood the intended meaning and knew what was required, so the obligation of rising for prayer was upon him. Such a person is not excused by his sleep.