The Disbelief of One Who Neglects the Prayer

Question: I am thirty-six years old, yet most of my deeds over the course of my life have been displeasing. I have committed many violations: until two years ago I did not fast Ramadan, and I likewise failed to perform the prayers. What is required of me with regard to the prayer and the fast, for I have firmly resolved to make a sincere repentance to Allah? In addition, I have taken many oaths and broken a great number of them, but I do not know exactly how many. Am I obliged to offer an expiation, and how can I do so when I am ignorant of the number of oaths I broke?

Answer: Concerning the first matter—your abandonment of the prayers and the fast for years—during that entire period you were not upon Islam, for whoever deliberately forsakes the prayer is a disbeliever, whether he denies its obligation or affirms it yet leaves it out of laziness, according to the sound view.

Thus throughout that span you were without a religion. When, however, Allah favored you with repentance and you turned back to Him, maintaining both the fast and the prayer, then repentance erases whatever preceded it, and you are not required to make up what you missed before repenting.

Regarding the oaths you swore and then violated, while being unaware of their precise number, you must strive to estimate their total and pay the expiation for them, adopting a cautious stance. If, for example, you reckon that they were ten oaths, add one more as a safeguard. Be careful: estimate, take due precaution, and in the future refrain from excessive swearing, for Allah the Exalted says, “And do not obey every worthless habitual swearer.” (al-Qalam 68:10)

Frequent and hasty swearing places a person in hardship and treats the oath lightly. Therefore, guard yourself against oaths in the future, act with caution, and calculate the necessary expiation for what has passed. May Allah grant success to everyone.