Neglecting the prayers

25-12-2001 | IslamWeb

Question:

Which is the better of the two, to pray only Friday Jumuah prayer or not to pray at all?

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Answer:

Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the World; and blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad and upon all his Family and Companions.
The daily five prayers are among the five pillars of Islam. They come right after the proclaiming the two witnesses of Islam. The person who does not perform the prayers has no share in Islam since the Prophet said: "The pact between us and them is prayer. Whoever abandons it is a disbeliever". [Reported by Imam Tirmizi and he grades it Sahih]. The Prophet also said: "The head of the matter is Islam, its pillar is the prayer and the top of its hump is Jihad in the way of Allah". [Imam Tirmizi and classified it as Sahih].
Whoever abandons some prayers he enters in this ruling of Allah: "Then, there has succeeded them a posterity who have given up As-Salât (the prayers) [i.e. made their Salât (prayers) to be lost, either by not offering them or by not offering them perfectly or by not offering them in their proper fixed times, etc.] and have followed lusts. So they will be thrown in Hell". [19:59]
Therefore, the person who neglected performing prayers should hasten to make sincere repentance and should remind himself that the death, the cutter-off of pleasures, is very near to him, and he will never escape from it.
In fact, the person who neglects all the prayers other than Friday prayer is in a great danger and faces a large evil. However, he is in a lesser evil than the one who does not pray at all and does not prostrate to Allah at anytime.
Allah knows best.