He says, "I heard in one of the episodes of this program, and after reviewing what was mentioned, I learned that the answer came from you, O honorable Shaykh Muhammad. He says that..."

The questioner : He says, "I heard in one of the episodes of this program, and after reviewing what was mentioned, I learned that the answer came from you, O honorable Shaykh Muhammad. He says that whoever dies without praying is called a disbeliever and is not washed, not prayed over, and not buried with the Muslims. My question is: Is the one who prays sometimes and leaves it off sometimes, and fasts a few days but leaves most of the days of Ramadan, called a disbeliever or not? May Allah keep you firm."

The Shaykh : Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may peace and blessings be upon our Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and all his Companions.
I say that, as I mentioned, I have previously given the answer regarding the ruling on the one who leaves off prayer. I explained, with evidence from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), that he is a disbeliever whose disbelief takes him out of the religion. Accordingly, he is not washed, not shrouded, not prayed over, not buried in the graveyards of the Muslims, his Muslim relatives do not inherit from him, his wife is divorced from him, and it is not permissible for him to enter Makkah and its sacred precinct, as was explained in a previous episode.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : But the question he raised is: If a person leaves off prayer sometimes and prays sometimes, and fasts some days of Ramadan and leaves off others, what is his ruling?
We say: If he does so out of denial of the obligation and the fact that it is obligatory, or out of doubt regarding the obligation, then he is a disbeliever. He is a disbeliever because of this, meaning because of his doubt about the obligation of this matter, or because of his denial of its obligation. This is because the obligation of prayer and fasting is known with certainty from the Book, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the Muslims. No one among the Muslims denies its obligation except a man who has newly embraced Islam and knows nothing about the rulings of Islam; in that case, this matter may be hidden from him. But if he leaves off some, meaning some of the prayers or some of the days of Ramadan, while he acknowledges the obligation of all of them, then there is scholarly disagreement regarding leaving off prayer. As for fasting, he is not a disbeliever; he is not declared a disbeliever for leaving off some days, but rather he is an open sinner. However, it is prayer that we are discussing.

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : So we say: The scholars who hold that the one who leaves off prayer is a disbeliever differ on whether he is a disbeliever for leaving off one obligatory prayer, or two, or whether he is not a disbeliever unless he leaves off all of them. What appears to me is that he is not a disbeliever unless he leaves it off absolutely, meaning that he did not pray and it is not known that he ever prayed, and he is consistent in leaving off prayer. But if he prays sometimes and does not pray sometimes, while he acknowledges its obligation, I cannot say that he is a disbeliever, because the hadith says: And the one who prays sometimes cannot be said to have left off prayer. And the hadith says: .

The questioner : Yes.

The Shaykh : It did not say, "So whoever leaves off a prayer has become a disbeliever," nor did it say, "Between a man and shirk and disbelief is leaving off a prayer," but rather it said: So its apparent meaning is that he is not a disbeliever unless it is a general, absolute leaving off. But if he leaves it off sometimes and prays sometimes, he is an open sinner, one who has committed a great matter and committed a great sin against himself. Yes.