Discussion on the weakness of the hadith with the wording: “Supplication is the marrow of worship,” and on the error of dividing religion into core and shell.

The Shaykh : And this hadith is not authentic in the famous wording on the tongues of people: ; this is not authentic. Rather, the authentic, established wording from the Messenger (peace be upon him) is the first wording: , and this is more eloquent than the weak, inauthentic wording, contrary to what some people think. Because his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): is on the same scale as, or similar to, his saying: ; meaning, it is as if all worship is supplication, and as if all Hajj is standing at 'Arafah. So this is a great exaggeration in estimating the weight of worship, the weight of supplication in terms of it being worship, and the weight of Hajj in terms of standing at 'Arafah being a fundamental pillar of Hajj. It is not so with the weak hadith: ; for it makes worship two parts, marrow and shell. And this has been a calamity for many people today in this age when you draw their attention to some important matters, whether they are things Allah or His Messenger commanded or forbade, and they say to you: “My brother, leave us alone with these shells!”
A thing that the Lord of the Worlds brought and His noble Messenger spoke of is described as a shell, first of all, and based on this false description, it is said, secondly: let us leave it! This is a very dangerous deviation from Islam. Therefore, we do not accept that there is a shell and a core in Islam, even though we know that the rulings of Islam are not all on the same level; there is no doubt in that. Because we know, for example, that in what a person draws near to Allah (Mighty and Majestic) with, there is what is obligatory and what is voluntary. If one falls short in the obligatory, he will be punished on the Day of Resurrection to the extent of his shortcoming. And in contrast to this obligatory, there is the voluntary; if he does not do any of the voluntary, he is not held accountable for it. Likewise, there are forbidden things and there are disliked things. In this difference, but it is not correct for us to call the least desirable Islamic ruling a shell; because this term contains an insult to this legal ruling, no matter how small its matter is. How could it be otherwise, when I have mentioned to you repeatedly his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): , and in the other hadith from Abu Hurayrah: ?!
So this voluntary act, if there is a ruling in the Shari'ah that it is permissible for a Muslim to call a shell, it is this voluntary act; because if you leave it, you have no responsibility for it on the Day of Resurrection. But this terminology did not come first, and secondly, you have seen the value of this voluntary act that some people today may call a “shell” without any regard. Its value is that Allah (Mighty and Majestic) completes the deficiency of the obligatory that the Muslim, who is obligated, may have fallen short in, either in quantity; that is, in terms of performance, for he missed many of the obligations, or in quality; that is, in terms of the form of performance, for he may hasten in his prayer, pecking it like a crow, or he may not be humble in it except a little, and so on. So all these deficiencies are made up from the voluntary. So there is nothing in Islam that it is correct to call a shell.
However, I say to such people who have deviated in their understanding of Islam far away, making it two parts, core and shell; we say: it is not possible to preserve the core except by the safety of the shell. So this shell is necessary, if it is correct to call it that, and this is a reality we touch in material matters. So Islam can be said to have a fence that surrounds the person and protects him. And this is what was indicated in the hadith of al-Nu'man ibn Bashir, who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: ; meaning, these ambiguous matters that confuse some people, so it does not appear to him whether they are from the forbidden or from the permissible? So he must avoid them; because .