not absolute, unqualified disbelief that expels one from Islam.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, in Iqtidaʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm, p. 70 (Sunnah Muḥammadiyyah ed.), commenting on the Prophet’s words, “Two traits found among the people are, on their account, disbelief,” 1 said:

“His statement ‘are, on their account, disbelief’ means that these two characteristics constitute kufr that is present among people; the very two traits are acts of unbelief, for they belong to the category of kufr and are indeed found among human beings. Nevertheless, not everyone in whom a single branch of kufr appears thereby becomes an outright disbeliever: he is not branded with absolute kufr until the reality of unbelief becomes firmly established in him. In the same way, not everyone in whom a single branch of īmān appears is thereby deemed a believer until the root and essence of faith are present within him. He also distinguished between al-kufr with the definite article—as in the Prophet’s saying, ‘Nothing stands between a servant and al-kufr or idolatry except abandoning the prayer,’ 2—and an indefinite kufr that is merely affirmed.” End of his words.

Once it has been made clear, on the strength of these proofs, that whoever abandons the prayer without a valid excuse is a disbeliever—disbelief that removes him from the fold of Islam—the correct position is that adopted by Imām Aḥmad