If it is objected:

What if he deliberately performs the prayer while omitting obligatory acts that he knows to be obligatory?

The response is:

Such a person deserves punishment, for he is committing an act of disobedience, and his sin may be equal to that of one who omits the prayer altogether. Even if it is assumed that he may (1) receive some reward, he will not be rewarded for it (2) as one who performs it together with the rest, as commanded. At most, it may be said that he receives a reward for it commensurate with it (3). What is known, however, is that if he did not know that this was obligatory or prohibited, he is rewarded for what he performed.

Allah Most High says:

“So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.”

[Surah al-Zalzalah: 7–8]

Reciting the Quran, remembering Allah, and supplicating Him are all good deeds. Even so, a Muslim may not pray facing a direction other than the qiblah, or without ablution, bowing, or prostration. Whoever does so deserves blame and punishment. Nevertheless, if he does so (* while acknowledging that he is sinning—not out of (4) disdain (5), mockery, or contempt, but out of laziness—he may be rewarded for what he performed, like one who omits obligatory rites of Hajj whose omission is compensated for by a sacrificial offering. His reward, however, will not be the same as if he performed it together with *) (6) the remaining acts in the manner prescribed.

This also makes clear the response to the specious argument advanced by the people of religious innovation—among the Khawārij, the Murji’ah, and others—who say:

Faith cannot be divided, does not vary in degree, and does not decrease.

They argue:

If any part of it is lost, all of it is lost, because anything composed of parts