Chapter Five
Rulings Specific to Women Concerning Their Prayer

O Muslim sister, guard your prayer, performing it at its appointed times while fulfilling all its conditions, pillars, and obligations. Allah the Exalted said to the Mothers of the Believers: “Establish the prayer, give the zakat, and obey Allah and His Messenger.” ⦗Confederates 33:33⦘ (1). This directive applies to Muslim women in general, for the prayer is the second pillar of Islam and its very backbone. Abandoning it is unbelief that expels a person from the faith; there is no religion and no Islam for the man or woman who does not pray. Delaying the prayer past its time without a lawful excuse is counted as squandering it. Allah the Exalted says: “Then there came after them a generation who neglected the prayer and followed their desires, so they will meet ghayya (ruin)—except those who repent, believe, and do righteous deeds; such people will enter Paradise and will not be wronged in the least.” ⦗Mary 19:59–60⦘ (2).

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr relates in his Tafsīr, on the authority of a group of leading exegetes, that the meaning of “neglecting the prayer” is letting its prescribed time lapse, praying only after the time has ended; as for the ghayya they will meet, he explained it as ruin, and he interpreted