If One Stops Praying, Is He a Disbeliever?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

When someone doesn’t pray regularly and even doesn’t pray at all but still goes to Friday Salah regularly, does he get out of Islam?

Answer

No, one is not considered a disbeliever for abandoning the prayer. They will, however, be committing a major sin. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

What Causes One to Leave the Fold of Islam

Upon entering the fold of Islam, one remains a Muslim until they reject belief in a necessary tenet of faith or something that is necessarily known to be a part of the Religion like the obligation of praying five times a day.

However, their mere abandoning of the performance of prayer while still believing that the prayer is obligatory does not remove them from Islam. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]

The Importance of the Prayer

The Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Verily, the first of actions that the slave will be taken to account for on the Day of Rising is their prayer. If it is found to be correct, then they are successful and saved. If it is found corrupt, then they have failed and lost. If there is a deficiency in their obligatory prayer, the Lord, Exalted and Magnificent, says, ‘Look to see! Does My slave have any voluntary prayer to complete the deficiencies?’ Likewise will be done with the rest of their deeds (thereafter).” [Tirmidhi]

The prayer is an invitation from our Creator to stand before him. What an honor it is for the believer to have such a relationship with their Creator. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) loved the prayer. He (may Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “The coolness of my eyes was made in the prayer.” [Nasa’i]

May Allah bless us with reverence and gratitude for His gifts.
Hope this helps

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.