A question was asked to the respected Mufti Abu Layth (ha), regarding abandoning the Prayers. So, the Mufti argued that it’s ok for taking the time for starting the prayers, regularly. Further, he argued that, the great Imams, al-Ghazali (ra) and Sayf al-Din Amidi (ra) also abandoned the prayers for a while. (From 3:30 to 3:56)
My question is, is it allowed to abandon the prayers for a Short time like İmam Ghazali (ra) and İmam Sayf al-Din Amidi (ra) did? kindly clarify. (E.g:- To survive in the great busy schedule, in which the relaxation of Qasr or Combining the prayers are not enough, or to the new person who finds it difficult to pray all 5 prayers, for taking up the time, and then coming back to the prayers, regularly).
As a principle the answer isno, Salah is the most important expression of our relationship with God. As a conscious Muslim, Salah is the primary mode of worship to Allah, which is an inevitable requirement of expressing our feeling of ‘Parastish‘ to Allah. What usually happens is that being a born muslim, we fail to consciously understand the essence of our faith with a weak basis of our ‘iman‘ and hence Salah only seems to us like a useless repeated endeavour without any apparent benefit, spiritual or otherwise.
To understand the importance of Salah and its benefits when performed consciously, please refer to the link below from 12:34 to 23:23
Secondly, the requirements of Salah, it timings, its obligatory nature, its prerequisites and relaxation have been clearly given in Sharia. Please refer to the following thread for details:
Lastly, comes the exceptional cases where a person has not previously offered any Salah and has now consciously realized his mistake and is now trying to keep up with five daily Salah but fails at times or a person who has previously considered Salah as an empty ritual and used to pray at times and ignore at times but is now consciously trying to offer all the five regularly but fails at times. These are the instances where room is available because of their circumstances and their intentions (which are pure) that if they fail to pray at times, they may not be held accountable because of the reasons mentioned above. At the end, the matter of accountability with respect to worship rituals is between Allah and the person himself, we can only encourage them and emphasize on the importance of Salah in Islam. We can however issue no verdict against a person who does not offer Salah regularly. At the same time, we have no basis available in Quran or Sunnah to give a blanket exemption from Salah to anyone. Infact, such a blanket exemption goes against the very explicit teachings of Islam. (Please also see: Discussion 35095ANDDiscussion 39257 • Reply 39286)
Indeed, Salah is the most important thing in our lives. But, One question, Does that mean, what Imam al-Ghazali and Imam Sayf al-Din Amidi did was wrong?
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