without elaboration. Yet his own words point in the opposite direction and do not contradict the sound ḥadīth—especially since he himself recorded it in his Musnad, just as he transmitted the ḥadīth of ʿĀʾishah conveying the same meaning, as noted earlier.

His son ʿAbd Allāh states in his Masāʾil (p. 55): “I asked my father—may Allah have mercy on him—about someone who deliberately abandons the prayer. He replied: ‘…As for the one who leaves it altogether and does not perform it, and the one who performs it outside its proper time, I summon him for three days. If he prays, well and good; if he refuses, I strike off his neck. To me he is in the position of an apostate…’ ”

I say: This is an explicit statement from Imām Aḥmad that he did not declare a person an unbeliever merely for neglecting the prayer; rather, he did so because the person refused to pray even after knowing he would be executed if he persisted. The decisive factor was his preference for death over prayer, which shows that his disbelief was doctrinal, and thus he deserved to be put to death.

Something similar is reported by al-Majd Ibn Taymiyyah—the grandfather of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah—in his work al-Muḥarrar fī’l-Fiqh al-Ḥanbalī (p. 62): “Whoever delays a prayer out of laziness, not out of denial, is ordered to perform it; if he persists until the time of the next prayer is about to expire, he must be killed.”

I say: He is therefore not deemed an unbeliever for the mere delay, but for the obstinate persistence that betrays denial. ⦗46⦘