to brand the one who neglects the prayer with unbelief and apostasy in the harshest, most uncompromising terms (1). Declaring that a Muslim has left the religion of Islam and entered into unbelief is something no believer in Allah and the Last Day should attempt except on evidence clearer than the midday sun. Indeed, sound hadiths transmitted by a group of Companions confirm (2): “If someone says to his brother, ‘You unbeliever,’ the accusation returns upon one of them,” and in another wording in the Ṣaḥīḥ, “…then one of them has fallen into unbelief.”

These narrations—and others like them—are the greatest deterrent and the strongest admonition against rushing into takfīr.

Allah, Exalted is He, says: “…but whoever willingly opens his heart to disbelief…” (Q 16:106). Thus unbelief must be accompanied by an opening of the breast to it, a tranquillity of the heart in it, and a settled acceptance of it (3).

Granted, zeal and emotion may impel certain scholars or their students to pronounce takfīr on everyone who abandons the prayer, without distinguishing between outright denial and mere laziness.