24/08/2022
there is no excuse for leaving Salah. If you do not have money, you are excused from paying Zakāh, if you are ill, you are excused from fasting and you can pay a Fidyah instead, if you do not have the financial ability or the road to Hajj is not safe, you do not have to make Hajj, but there is no situation in which a Muslim is excused from Salāh to a point that even in the battlefield, the soliders must still pray and we are given the Fiqh of it in Salatul Khawf.
“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘The covenant that distinguishes between us and them is prayer; so whoever leaves it, he has committed Kufr.’”
We know that after that the ‘Ulamā' discussed the issue of the Kufr of Tārik As-Salāh, of whether the one who leaves Salāh has disbelieved or not, and one can go back to the books of Fiqh to see what they said about that - it is the opinion of Imam Ahmad that if a person leaves it out of laziness then he is a has disbelieved, while some others have said they leave the fold if it’s intentional. The difference of opinion is besides the point. The point is that the most important worship is Salah, so we should never abandon it. It is the absolute bare minimum yet we see people being praised for establishing all 5. In fact, many a times I have seen sisters ambushed FOR praying all 5 - Being called “nerdy” or “extreme” or “extra”. And we seek refuge from this.
