are few—namely, those missed over less than a day and a night, or the prayers of a day and a night—as is the position of Abū Hanīfa and Mālik. Most scholars do not require someone who has lost his reason through insanity to make up the prayers, though there is an isolated dissenting opinion.

The point is that the five daily prayers never cease to be obligatory for anyone whose reason remains intact, whether eminent, righteous, or learned.

Certain groups of ignorant worshippers and their followers, ignorant speculative thinkers and their followers, and ignorant Ismāʿīlīs and Nusayrīs—although they are all ignorant—imagine that this obligation ceases to apply to those who possess spiritual knowledge, those who have attained spiritual realization, the people of the Presence, those for whom extraordinary events have occurred, the Ismāʿīlī imams or some of their followers, those versed in the rational sciences, theologians skilled in speculative reasoning, or philosophers thoroughly accomplished in philosophy. All of this is false, by the consensus of Muslims and according to what is necessarily known of the religion of Islam.

Muslim scholars agree that any such person must be called upon to repent: if he repents and acknowledges that the prayers are obligatory, well and good; otherwise, he is put to death. They do not disagree about putting to death someone who denies their obligation. Their disagreement concerns someone who acknowledges their obligation but refuses to perform them, although most scholars hold that he too must be put to death.

If one of these people then returns and acknowledges their obligation, must he make up the prayers he has omitted? There are three types of case here. The first is that he has become an apostate who refuses