for, once the prayer is lost, no trace of religion remains. Hence the ḥadīth states, “The first thing you will forfeit of your religion is trustworthiness, and the last of it is the prayer.”

The prayer is a matter of grave importance, and it is impermissible for a Muslim to treat it lightly. Whoever abandons it has fallen into disbelief, as the authentic ḥadīths and Qurʾānic verses attest—whether he denies that it is obligatory or merely neglects it while still acknowledging its obligation, for the sounder view is that abandoning it in either case constitutes disbelief. Such a person has failed to establish his religion and has not safeguarded his prayer.

Yet whoever repents to Allah with a genuine repentance and thereafter keeps up his prayer for the rest of his life, Allah will accept his repentance, for repentance erases whatever preceded it. The Most High says, "Then there came after them successors who neglected the prayer and followed their desires; so they will meet ruin—except for the one who repents, believes, and acts righteously" (Maryam 59–60).

Accordingly, true repentance wipes out what came before. A person who repents from having abandoned the prayer in the past is not required to make up the missed times; rather, he must guard his prayer for the remainder of his life until Allah takes him in death, and that will suffice him, God willing. During the period in which he abandoned the prayer he was not upon the religion of Islam; when he repents, he re-enters Islam afresh, remains constant in his prayer going forward, and—if Allah wills—Allah will accept his repentance.