to the sun while fasting.’ The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, instructed him to fast only.” This is because fasting is an act of worship that Allah Most High loves, whereas the other practices are not acts of worship, even if someone imagines that they bring him closer to Allah Most High.

It is authentically reported that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would say in his sermons:

“The best speech is the speech of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. The worst matters are those newly introduced into religion, and every innovation is misguidance.”

An authentic report also relates:

“Some of his Companions made the following statements. One said, ‘As for me, I will fast without breaking my fast.’ Another said, ‘As for me, I will pray without sleeping.’ Another said, ‘As for me, I will not marry women.’ Another said, ‘As for me, I will not eat meat.’ The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, ‘What is the matter with men who say such-and-such? I, however, fast and break my fast, sleep, marry women, and eat meat. Whoever turns away from my Sunnah is not of me.’”

If this is the case regarding practices that are, in principle, acts of worship—for fasting and prayer are forms of worship, while abstaining from meat and marriage is permissible, yet when someone departed from the Sunnah by committing himself to more than was prescribed, or to abstaining from permissible things as monks do, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, disavowed anyone who did so, since he had turned away from his Sunnah to its opposite, and said, “There is no monasticism in Islam”—then what of someone who turns away from one of the greatest rites of Islam: attending Friday and congregational prayers?

It has been related from Ibn ‘Abbās that he was asked more than once about someone who fasts