Just as Allah the Exalted says: “Whenever they commit an obscenity they say, ‘We found our forefathers doing so, and Allah has commanded us to do it.’” Yet Allah rebuts them: “Say: Indeed, Allah does not command indecency.” (Al-Aʿrāf 7:28).

In sum, the Messenger ﷺ ordered the very people to whom he first preached to abandon the polytheism their forefathers practised.

Abu Sufyān also said, “He used to command us to pray.” Prayer is the bond between the servant and his Lord. It is the most emphatic pillar of Islam after the two testimonies of faith, and through it the believer is distinguished from the unbeliever. It is the covenant that stands between us and the polytheists and unbelievers, as the Prophet ﷺ declared: “The covenant between us and them is the prayer; whoever abandons it has fallen into disbelief.” That means disbelief that expels a person from the religion, for the Messenger ﷺ explicitly said, “The covenant between us and them is the prayer,” making it a definitive boundary between believers and disbelievers.

Some scholars have strayed far afield by claiming that the disbelief meant here is the lesser kind—such as in his ﷺ saying, “Two traits found among people are acts of disbelief.” Anyone who reflects on the hadith will realise that this is a mistaken interpretation, and that the only sound view is that the disbelief intended here is the greater disbelief that removes a person from the fold of Islam, for it is a boundary between two things—between