its obligation, together with the belief that whoever abandons it deserves to be put to death, constitutes a fully sufficient motive for performing it. Such a motive, when accompanied by the ability to act, necessarily brings about the act. Thus, if someone is able to pray yet never does so, it is known that this motive is absent in his case. Firm belief in the punishment for abandoning prayer prompts a person to perform it. Sometimes, however, other factors may counteract this, causing him to delay it, neglect some of its obligatory elements, or occasionally miss it altogether.

As for someone who persists in abandoning prayer, never prays at all, and dies persisting in this abandonment, such a person is not a Muslim. Most people, however, pray at times and abandon prayer at others. They do not observe it consistently and are subject to the threat of punishment. It is they who are referred to in the hadith recorded in the Sunan collections, narrated by Ubādah from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who said:

“Allah has prescribed five prayers for His servants each day and night. Whoever observes them consistently has a covenant with Allah that He will admit him to Paradise. Whoever does not observe them consistently has no covenant with Allah: if He wills, He will punish him, and if He wills, He will forgive him.”

The one who observes prayer consistently is the one who performs it at its appointed times, as Allah Most High has commanded. Whoever sometimes delays it beyond its appointed time or neglects its obligatory elements is subject to the will of Allah Most High. Such a person may have voluntary prayers through which the deficiencies in his obligatory prayers are made up, as mentioned in the hadith.