I now return to the remainder of my discussion with the foreign mufti. I said to him, “If matters are truly as you claim—that the Muslims have no need for mujtahids because the mufti can always locate an answer to the very problem raised, or to one identical to it—would any harm follow if, hypothetically, the Qur’an were to disappear?”
He replied, “That could never happen.”
I said, “I am only speaking hypothetically.”
He responded, “Even if it did happen, no harm at all would result!”
So I asked, “What worth, then, is Allah’s favor upon His servants in preserving the Qur’an when He said, ‘Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will guard it’ (Q 15:9), if such preservation is unnecessary after the era of the imams?!”
The reality is that the answer we drew from the mufti in this exchange is the answer of every blind imitator on earth; the only difference is that some of them do not dare voice it openly, though their hearts surely harbor it. We seek Allah’s refuge from such disgrace.
Reflect, discerning reader, on the extent of the harm of which we complain. They have treated the Qur’an as though it were already withdrawn, while it is still in our midst—praise be to Allah. What, then, will their state be when it is actually taken away in a single night, leaving not a single verse on earth?! O Allah, guide them.
Ruling on the one who neglects the prayer
The hadith also contains an important legal benefit: the testimony that there is no god but Allah saves the one who utters it from eternal residence in Hell on the Day of Resurrection, even if he fulfills none of the other five pillars of Islam, such as the prayer.
It is well known that the scholars have differed over the ruling on a person who abandons the prayer while believing in its legitimacy. The majority hold that such a person does not become a disbeliever; rather, he is regarded as a flagrant sinner. Ahmad ibn Ḥanbal, however, maintained that he does become a disbeliever and is to be executed for apostasy, not as a ḥadd-punishment.
Authentic reports state that the Companions considered no deed whose abandonment constituted disbelief except the prayer; this was narrated by al-Tirmidhī and al-Ḥākim. Yet I judge the majority view to be correct, and I do not accept that the Companions intended by “disbelief” here the kind of disbelief that condemns a person to eternal Hell with no possibility of divine pardon. How could that be, when Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān—one of the foremost Companions—responds