63- Al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib and others said, “Your prayer that was directed toward Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem).”¹

Texts concerning the ruling on one who abandons the prayer

64- The prayer is on a par with the shahādatayn (the two testimonies of faith): it is never dropped under any circumstance, no one may perform it on behalf of another, and through it one enters into faith.² The revealed texts openly label the person who abandons it a disbeliever.

65- Muslim records from Jābir that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Between a servant and disbelief and idolatry stands only abandoning the prayer.”³

66- In the Sunan collections, Buraydah ibn Ḥuṣayb relates that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “The covenant that separates us from them is the prayer; whoever abandons it has committed disbelief.” It was narrated by Imām Aḥmad, Ibn Mājah, al-Tirmidhī, and al-Nasāʾī, who declared it “a ḥadīth that is ḥasan, ṣaḥīḥ, and gharīb.”⁴

67- Al-Tirmidhī⁵ also transmits—on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shuqayq—who said, “The Companions…"