Ritual Prayers (Salat)

“Abada b. al-Samit stated, I heard the Messenger of God say, “Five prayers are prescribed by God for His servants in the space of a day and a night. Those who observe these have God’s promise that he will let them enter Paradise. One who does not perform them has no promise from God. If God wills, He will punish the person, and if he wills, pardon.”
     The five prayers are obligatory for every Muslim who has reached the age of puberty and has the use of reason, except for women who are menstruating or recovering from childbirth. If Muslims deny the necessity of prayer through ignorance, one must instruct them; if they deny it willfully, they have apostatized.
     It is not permitted to delay a prayer, unless one has formulated the intention of combining it with another prayer, or was prevented from fulfilling the conditions for it [e.g., great ablution].
     If Muslims abstain from saying the prayers from negligence, one should ask them three times to repent: if they repent, it is well, and if they refuse it is lawful to put them to death.” (ibid., p. 71 – taken from: Muwaffaq al-Din b. Qudama, Kitab al-‘Umda fi al-Fiqh al-Hanbali (Damascus, 1990), 21-16, abridged.)

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 3, 2011 at 11:51 AM

    As a Christian I would rather pray out of a love for God, out of a sense of dependency and gratitude, than out of a sense of fear, especially a fear that I could be killed for not 'doing it right.'

    ReplyDelete

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