Section
On the Legal Ruling
Regarding Refraining from Prayer
Learn, my Muslim brother (May Allah
cause you to stick to virtuous and righteous deeds, and protect you from sins
and destructive deeds), that the conditions of prayer are: sanity, adulthood,
and purity from menstruation and postnatal bleeding. Thus, whoever refrains
from prayer altogether (May Allah forbid) after reaching the age of puberty,
with a sound mind, his legal judgement depends on his situation, which consists
of one of these two states:
The first state: He refrains from prayer,
denying its obligation or rejecting its legality entirely. The scholars have
agreed that such a person is a disbeliever and an apostate from the religion. Shaykh
al-Qannubi says: ‘If he left the prayer renouncing it, he would be mushrik
[a disbeliever or polytheist] by Consensus. This is because the obligation of
prayer as an integral part of the religion is necessarily well known. And
whoever denies what is necessarily known of the fundamentals of the religion,
he would be mushrik (May Allah forbid).
The legal ruling: He must be
asked to repent to Allah. If he does so, all that he left of prayers in the
state of denial would be forgiven; otherwise, he is given the ruling of
apostasy. This applies to anyone who denies what is of the fundamental basics of
the religion.
The second state: He refrains from
prayer carelessly, out of laziness, without denying or rejecting its
obligation. The legal ruling: by doing so, he is sinful and has
committed a minor kufr, not a major one. He must be asked to repent
three times. If he does so, he should make up what he did not perform out of negligence.
If he insists and does not repent, his case should be referred to the legal
judge to estimate his due punishment.
Juristic Issue
I quote below from the book al-Mukhtasar
al-Mufid fi al- Kaffarat, which means The Beneficial Summary of Expiations,
a juristic issue regarding one who refrained from prayer deliberately,
out of carelessness or laziness, then he wanted to repent to Allah. Besides
making up the missed prayers, a disagreement between scholars took place as to
whether he must expiate, just like one who refrained from fasting, or not.
The quotation reads: ‘Some scholars
maintained that there is no obligatory atonement for abandoning prayer
to start with. This opinion was held by the two Shaykhs, al-Khalili and al- Qannubi.
The reason is that the default ruling states that a Muslim’s wealth is
untouchable. Thus, nothing could be taken away [from its owner} without
considerable legal cause. However, if he gave one expiation, for the sake of
precaution, that would be good. This opinion (atonement not being compulsory in
this case) is held by Shaykh Munazil, one of the Ibadi scholars from Khurasan.
Reference:
The
Reliable Jurisprudence of Prayer; by: Al-Muatasim Al-Mawali
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