that he worship Him through the greatest acts of worship. Thus, one's statement must necessarily be confirmed by one's actions. A person cannot claim something while failing to act upon it; rather, in our view, he is lying. Why, then, do we declare him a disbeliever on the basis of texts that declare him so, even though he says, “There is no god worthy of worship but Allah,” yet not declare him a disbeliever for abandoning the prayer, despite the explicit texts stating his disbelief? This is nothing but a contradiction.

Nor can the texts declaring disbelief be understood as referring to one who abandons the prayer while denying that it is obligatory. If a person were to perform the prayer completely while denying its obligation, he would still be a disbeliever. Thus, when Imam Ahmad was asked about Allah’s saying, “And whoever kills a believer intentionally …” [al-Nisa 4:93]—the verse—and it was said, “This concerns one who deems the killing of a Muslim lawful,” he replied: “Glory be to Allah! Whoever deems the killing of a Muslim lawful is bound for the Fire, whether he kills him or not.”

The same applies here. If you interpret the hadith in this manner, you have distorted it in two ways:

First: you have taken its indication away from its apparent meaning, for the hadith is conditional upon abandonment, not denial.

Second: you have nullified its indication regarding that which it explicitly addresses—namely, abandonment—by interpreting it as denial.

This is a case of first adopting a belief and then seeking evidence for it. It is Allah, exalted is He, who judges disbelief and Islam.

It remains to be said: Are there hadiths that contradict the hadiths indicating disbelief? We say: First, we must know what contradiction means before claiming that it exists. Hence, we say: Verify before you embellish: has there come