Aslam

Praise be to Allah.

The reader will not attain the reward for

completing the Holy Qur'aan unless he has recited all of it and not

omitted any part of it. If he omits a verse and does not recite it, then

he has not completed the Holy Qur'aan.

The scholars even said that he should recite

the Basmalah at the beginning of every soorah except Soorat Baraa’ah (al-Tawbah),

and he should pay attention to that so that he will have completed the

Qur'aan.

Al-Nawawi (may Allah have mercy on him)

said:

He should always recite Bismillaah al-Rahmaan

al-Raheem at the beginning of every soorah except Baraa’ah, as most of the

scholars said that it is a verse, as it is written in the Mushaf and it is

written at the beginning of all soorahs except Bara’aah. If he recites it

then he has definitely completed the recitation, and if he omits the

Basmalah he has omitted part of the Qur'aan according to the majority. End

quote.

Al-Tibyaan,

p. 61, 62

Based on that, it is essential for the

reader to recite what he forgot of the verses, so that he may attain the

reward for completing the Qur'aan.

The scholars (may Allah have mercy on them)

mentioned two ways narrated from the Salaf (early generation) of reciting

the verse or verses that the imam forgot during Taraweeh prayers:

1.He should put all

these verses together and recite them all on the last night of Ramadan. This

is what the imams used to do in Makkah in the past.

2.When he remembers

the verse that he forgot, he should recite it [this applies if he is still

reciting in the prayer] and then resume his recitation until he has

finished. This was narrated from ‘Ali (may Allah be pleased with him).

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah (may Allah have

mercy on him) said, noting that the order in which it is prescribed to

recite is waived in the case of forgetting:

… if he forgets some of the verses of the

soorah when praying qiyaam in Ramadan (i.e., Taraaweeh), he should not

repeat it [the entire soorah] or repeat what comes after it, but if he

deliberately changes the order of the verses in the soorah and recites the

later ones before the earlier ones, that is not permissible according to

scholarly consensus.

Imam Ahmad (may Allah have mercy on him) was

asked about the imam during the month of Ramadan omitting some verses from

the soorah: did he think that the one who was praying behind him should

recite them?

He said: Yes, he should do that. In Makkah

they used to appoint a man to write down what the imam forgot of verses and

so on, then on night of completion he would recite what he had omitted.

His companions -- such as Abu Muhammad (Ibn

Qudaamah) -- said: Rather that is mustahabb in order to complete the Qur'aan

and so as to attain a complete reward. The people of Makkah and Ahmad and

his companions thought that if the one who had omitted some verses recited

them later on when he remembered them, that was sufficient to be regarded as

having completed the Qur’aan and to attain the reward, even if that meant

the order of verses was not followed in this instance, because without

reciting these verses, his recitation of the soorah could not be regarded as

complete. This was narrated from ‘Ali: he forgot a verse from a soorah, then

whilst he was still reciting he recited it, then resumed his recitation from

where he had got to, and no one noticed that he had forgotten anything

except those who were Haafiz (i.e., had memorised the entire Qur'aan).

Majmoo’ al-Fataawa,

21/410, 411.

And Allah knows best.