A corroborating report, abbreviated and without the supplication of the man who was lashed, is narrated from Ibn ʿUmar. Its chain of transmission is weak, as explained in the other book (2188).
Regarding the jurisprudence of the hadith: Al-Tahawi said after it: “It indicates that one who abandons the prayer does not thereby become a disbeliever. For had he been a disbeliever, his supplication would have been invalid, in view of Allah Most High’s saying: ‘The supplication of the disbelievers is only in error.’” Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr cited this from him in al-Tamhid (4/239) and endorsed it. Indeed, he further supported it by interpreting the hadiths that declare the one who abandons prayer to be a disbeliever as referring to “one who abandons the prayer while denying it, obstinately rejecting it, arrogantly refusing it, and failing to acknowledge its obligatory status.” He further argued that those who deem such a person a disbeliever on that account, and take those hadiths at their apparent meaning in his case, must also declare the murderer and insulter of a Muslim to be disbelievers, as well as the adulterer, and so forth—among other acts mentioned in hadiths which scholars do not consider to expel a believer from Islam, even though, in their view, committing them renders him sinful. Thus, there is no objection to understanding the reports concerning the one who abandons prayer in the same way.”
I say: This is the truth. See the forthcoming hadith (3054), for it is a decisive, explicit text.
- “He would seek refuge with these words: ‘[O Allah, Lord of mankind,] remove the affliction and grant healing, for You are the Healer. There is no healing except Your healing—a healing that leaves no illness behind.’ When he became seriously ill during the illness in which he died, I took his hand and began to wipe him [with it] while reciting them. But he withdrew his hand from mine and said: