by day, stand in prayer by night, and recite the Quran in three days’?”

He replied, “Yes.” He said, “Do not do that, for if you do, your eyes will become sunken and you will grow exhausted.” He then instructed him to fast three days each month. He replied, “I can manage more than that.” Eventually, he instructed him to fast on alternate days. He said, “I can manage more than that.” He replied, “There is nothing better than that.” He also said:

“The best fasting is the fasting of David, peace be upon him: he would fast one day and not fast the next, and he would not flee when he met the enemy. The best night prayer is that of David: he would sleep half the night, pray for a third of it, and sleep for a sixth.”

He instructed him to recite the Quran in seven days.

Since these were the familiar forms of worship, he said in the hadith concerning the Khawārij recorded in the two Sahīh collections:

“Any one of you would consider his prayer insignificant compared with theirs, his fasting compared with theirs, and his recitation compared with theirs. They recite the Quran, but it does not go beyond their throats. They pass out of the religion as an arrow passes through its quarry.”

He thus mentioned their strenuous devotion to prayer, fasting, and recitation, and that they go to such extremes in these that the Companions would consider their own worship insignificant beside theirs.

These people went to excess in worship without understanding, which ultimately led them into religious innovation. He therefore said:

“They pass out of Islam as an arrow passes through its quarry. Wherever you find them, kill them, for whoever kills them will have a reward with Allah on the Day of Resurrection.”

For they had deemed it lawful to shed the blood of Muslims and declared those who disagreed with them to be disbelievers. Hadiths have been transmitted concerning them