rather—even after neglecting the prayers of two consecutive months—he was allowed to postpone making up some of them so that he could earn his livelihood. In my view, this indicates two things:

First—already mentioned—is that he remains a Muslim even though his liability is not discharged by making up all the prayers he owes.

Second, the ruling for making up a prayer is lighter than the ruling for performing it on time, for I cannot believe that Imam Aḥmad, or anyone of lesser learning than he, would permit allowing the time of a prayer to lapse merely for the sake of earning a living. And Allah knows best.

Know, my Muslim brother, that this report from Imam Aḥmad and others like it is what every Muslim should rely upon—first for his own practice, and secondly as the true stance of Imam Aḥmad—because of his famous dictum: “If the hadith is authentic, that is my school.” This is especially important since the other statements transmitted from him that appear to contradict what has been presented are highly inconsistent, as you will find in al-Insāf (1/327–328) and other authoritative works. Despite their inconsistency, not one of them explicitly declares that a Muslim becomes a disbeliever merely by abandoning the prayer.⦗57⦘