The intended meaning of the statement: “His prayer is not accepted for forty days”
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
He says: Honorable Shaykh, some students of knowledge say that the intended meaning of the statement “His prayer is not accepted for forty days” is that it is a warning, and that it is not to be taken literally. What is your view of this statement?
The Shaykh:
I do not know, I mean, what is the difference between “a distant category” and “not to be taken literally”? Right?
The questioner:
“To be taken literally” means the Messenger’s words are to be understood in their literal sense.
The Shaykh:
This is a difficult statement. It is to be taken literally and in its apparent sense: that he has no reward in his prayer. Just as the one who comes to the Friday prayer and talks while the imam is delivering the sermon has no reward in his Friday prayer—linguistically, his Friday prayer. The negation here applies to the reward. As for repeating the prayer, he is not ordered to repeat it, because he prayed in form and appearance.
He says: Honorable Shaykh, some students of knowledge say that the intended meaning of the statement “His prayer is not accepted for forty days” is that it is a warning, and that it is not to be taken literally. What is your view of this statement?
The Shaykh:
I do not know, I mean, what is the difference between “a distant category” and “not to be taken literally”? Right?
The questioner:
“To be taken literally” means the Messenger’s words are to be understood in their literal sense.
The Shaykh:
This is a difficult statement. It is to be taken literally and in its apparent sense: that he has no reward in his prayer. Just as the one who comes to the Friday prayer and talks while the imam is delivering the sermon has no reward in his Friday prayer—linguistically, his Friday prayer. The negation here applies to the reward. As for repeating the prayer, he is not ordered to repeat it, because he prayed in form and appearance.
Source
المقصود بقول "لم تقبل له صلاة أربعين يوما" — alfawzan.live
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.