The Ruling on Commanding Prayer at Seven and Obligation at Puberty

Question:
Honorable Shaykh (may Allah preserve him), peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings. And after that, does not the fact that the Lawgiver tied the obligation of prayer to puberty and tied the command to perform it to the age of seven indicate that each is considered in its own context? For if seven were not intended, the ruling would have been tied to discernment, just as He tied it to puberty regarding obligation? May Allah reward you with good.

Answer:
And upon you be peace and Allah’s mercy and blessings. The command to perform it [is given] upon reaching the age of seven. This is a command for discipline and guidance, and it is directed to the guardian. Otherwise, the one commanded is not yet accountable until he reaches puberty. And he is commanded to perform it when he has discernment.
They understood the address and gave the response, and the Lawgiver made seven the limit for discernment, even though many children have discernment before that, because this is a general legislation in which all levels should be considered.
And thus, a child does not pass the age of seven without having discernment, except in the rare few, and the rare few have no ruling. Among the children, as we mentioned previously, is one who has discernment before seven. Mahmud ibn al-Rabi' had discernment at five, and others had discernment as well, as reality and history have witnessed, for those before the age of five. And they mentioned in the sciences of hadith stories indicating that some children had not reached the age of five, or even four, and yet they memorized the Qur'an and memorized some of the hadith.
The point is that when the Shari'ah comes with something, it is general for all people. Tying discernment and the command to prayer to the age of seven is a consideration of the condition of all people, and that no one passes the age of seven without having discernment, except in the rare few, and the rare few have no ruling.
As for puberty, the command in it is a command of compulsion. So the ruling for the one who has reached fifteen years of age, or the growth of pubic hair, or other signs of puberty, is that when a person reaches puberty, the command is directed to him personally, and he is held accountable for it, just as the adult is held accountable, just as the old man and the middle-aged man are held accountable. So there is a difference between being held accountable for the sake of discipline and guidance, as a seven-year-old is held accountable and a ten-year-old is struck for it, and being held accountable for it after puberty.