Likewise, whoever testifies truthfully from his heart that there is no god worthy of worship but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah must inevitably be moved by that truthfulness to perform the prayer sincerely for Allah Most High and in accordance with the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, for this is among the necessary implications of that truthful testimony.

The fourth category consists of texts qualified by a circumstance in which one is excused for abandoning the prayer, such as the hadith narrated by Ibn Majah from Hudhayfah ibn al-Yaman, who reported that the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “Islam will wear away just as the pattern of a garment wears away.” The hadith continues: “And there will remain groups of people—the elderly man and the old woman—who will say: ‘We found our forefathers upon this statement: There is no god worthy of worship but Allah, so we say it as well.’” Silah then said to him, “How will ‘There is no god worthy of worship but Allah’ benefit them when they do not know what prayer, fasting, rites of sacrifice, or charity are?” Hudhayfah turned away from him, but Silah repeated the question three times. Each time, Hudhayfah turned away from him; then, the third time, he turned to him and said, “O Silah, it will save them from the Fire,” three times. (1)

For those whom this statement saved from the Fire were excused from neglecting the prescribed ordinances of Islam because they knew nothing of them. What they did was the utmost of which they were capable, and their condition resembles that of those who died before the religious ordinances had been made obligatory, or