First: the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, made the prayer a clear dividing line between disbelief and faith, and between believers and disbelievers. A boundary demarcates what it separates and excludes each side from the other; therefore, the two defined entities are distinct, and neither can be included in the other.

Second: the prayer is one of the pillars of Islam. Hence, labeling the person who abandons it as a disbeliever implies the kind of disbelief that expels one from Islam, for he has demolished a pillar of the religion. This differs from the loose use of the word “disbelief” for someone who merely commits an act that resembles the conduct of disbelievers.

Third: additional texts also declare that the one who abandons the prayer falls into disbelief that takes him out of the community of Islam. Accordingly, the term disbelief must be understood in that sense so that the various texts align and agree with one another.

Fourth: the wording used for disbelief varies. Concerning the abandonment of prayer the Prophet said, “Between a man and idolatry and disbelief is the abandonment of the prayer” 1. Here he employed the definite form al-kufr (“the disbelief”), signifying genuine, full-scale disbelief. This contrasts with the indefinite kufr or the verbal form kafara, which merely indicate that the deed belongs to the category of disbelief, or that it is an instance of disbelief in that particular act, not absolute, unqualified disbelief.