What is the answer to the claim that one who abandons prayer is not declared a disbeliever?

The question: The first message in this episode was sent to the program from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Amman. The sender is our brother 'Umar Majid Muhammad Sa'id, a student in the general secondary school. Our brother began his message as follows:
Several fatwas have been issued by this program declaring as disbelievers those who abandon prayer, whether they abandon it out of denial or out of negligence. We have examined the opinions and evidence in this matter, and this ruling has appeared stronger to us. However, we have encountered a set of doubts that we ask Your Eminence to address, which are:
First: What is the fate of the one who abandons prayer, is it Paradise or the Fire? This is because this ruling conflicts with several hadiths, including the hadith of Abu Dharr, which is the saying of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): So Abu Dharr asked the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): "What if he commits zina and steals?" The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Abu Dharr did this twice, and the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) gave him the same answer, and in the second instance he said: This hadith was narrated by al-Bukhari.
Second: A fatwa has been issued stating that if one who abandons prayer dies, he is not prayed over and is not buried in the Muslim cemeteries. This conflicts with the hadith narrated by al-Daraqutni and al-Bayhaqi, which is the saying of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him): .
Third: This fatwa conflicts with another hadith whose text I do not recall, but its meaning is: that whoever performs prayer and preserves it has a covenant with Allah that He will admit him to Paradise, and whoever does not preserve it has no covenant; if Allah wills, He will forgive him, and if He wills, He will punish him. Thus, the one who abandons prayer is left to the will of Allah: if He wills, He will punish him, and if He wills, He will forgive him.
These are three doubts that we ask to be addressed with detail and clarification of the evidence for them. May Allah reward you with the best reward.
Answer: In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, and blessings and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and his Companions, and upon those who follow his guidance.
As for what follows: The evidences from the Book and the Sunnah are all established for the disbelief of the one who abandons prayer, whether he is a denier or a negligent person. As for the one who denies its obligation, he is a disbeliever by the consensus of the Muslims, because he is a liar against Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). And whoever lies against Allah or lies against His Messenger is a disbeliever by the consensus of the Muslims.
As for the one who abandons it out of negligence, not denial, this is the point of disagreement among the scholars, and the questioner has already known this. The correct view, as the questioner has known, is that the one who abandons it out of negligence commits major shirk (associating partners with Allah). This is the opinion of a group of scholars, and the noble Tabi'i Abdullah ibn Shaqiq al-'Uqayli reported from the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) that they did not consider anything abandoned to be disbelief except prayer.
Several hadiths indicate this, including his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): which Muslim included in his Sahih. And his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): which Imam Ahmad, Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah narrated with a sound chain from Buraydah ibn al-Husayb (may Allah be pleased with him). And among them is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): . And among them is his saying (peace and blessings be upon him) regarding prayer: These are the chiefs of the disbelievers and their great ones. So gathering the one who abandons prayer with them indicates his disbelief. We ask Allah for safety and well-being. And if he did not abandon it entirely, but abandons some and performs some, there are other evidences indicating this.
As for the three doubts mentioned by the questioner, their answer—by the praise of Allah—is easy. As for the hadith of Abu Dharr, it is evidence that whoever dies upon tawhid (the oneness of Allah) without associating anything with Allah is from the people of Paradise, even if he commits zina and steals. And so if he commits other sins, such as undutifulness to parents, riba (usury or interest), or false testimony, and the like, then the sinner is under the will of Allah: if our Lord wills, He will forgive him, and if He wills, He will punish him according to his sins if he dies without repenting. And if he enters the Fire and is punished in it, he will not remain in it forever, but he will come out of it into Paradise after purification and testing.
So the intent of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is: that even if he commits zina and steals, his destination is Paradise if he dies upon tawhid, even if he undergoes some of the punishments that befall some of the sinners. And so are the other hadiths indicating that the people of tawhid are from the people of Paradise, as he (peace and blessings be upon him) said in the hadith of 'Atban: agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim. Or in the hadith of Jabir in Muslim, where he (peace and blessings be upon him) says: in many hadiths.
This indicates that the destination of the people of tawhid is Paradise, even if some of them commit sins. They are under the will of Allah: they may be pardoned and enter Paradise immediately due to good deeds they have acquired which outweigh their scales. Or they may enter the Fire and be punished in it according to their sins, and then come out of it, as established by the hadiths from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) which are mass-transmitted. The people of the Sunnah have agreed that the sinners do not remain in the Fire forever if they die as Muslims upon tawhid and faith. They do not remain in the Fire, unlike the Khawarij and the Mu'tazilah and those who follow their path.
So the one who enters the Fire from the people of tawhid, who is a sinner, is not one who remains in it forever, unlike the disbelievers, who remain in the Fire forever. So the hadith of Abu Dharr and what came in its meaning is only regarding the sinners whose sin did not reach the level of disbelief. As for the one whose sin reaches the level of disbelief, such as the one who abandons prayer, the one who insults the religion, the one who mocks the religion, and their like, these people have broken their tawhid and broken their Islam. So no Islam remains with them, and the word of tawhid does not benefit them when they do what breaks Islam.
So the one who abandons prayer is not like the one who commits zina or the thief; rather, his case is above that and greater than that. He is of the same kind as the one who insults the religion, or insults Allah, or insults the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him), or mocks the religion, or the like. These are disbelievers by the consensus of the Muslims, even if they say: "There is no god but Allah," and even if they die without associating partners with Allah. Because their insulting of the religion indicates their contempt for it and their indifference to it. And so is their mocking of it. Allah the Exalted said: [al-Tawbah: 65-66]. And so, if he denies the obligation of prayer, he is a disbeliever, even if he is a monotheist, and even if he says: "There is no god but Allah," and even if he does not associate anything with Allah, according to all scholars, if he denies its obligation, or denies the obligation of zakah, or denies the obligation of fasting the fast of Ramadan, or denies the obligation of Hajj with the ability to perform it, or denies the prohibition of zina or the prohibition of khamr (intoxicants), he is a disbeliever by consensus, even if he says: "There is no god but Allah," and even if he does not associate anything with Allah. Because this action of his makes him a disbeliever in the ruling of the polytheists, so he falls into those who associate partners with Allah.
And so, his abandoning of prayer makes him fall into the disbelievers. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) only ruled that Paradise is for the one who dies without associating anything with Allah, meaning: the one who says: "There is no god but Allah" as a monotheist, not a polytheist. And the one who abandons prayer exits from the people of tawhid to the people of disbelief. And so, the one who insults the religion exits from the people of tawhid to the people of disbelief. And so, the one who mocks the religion. And so, the one who denies the obligation of prayer, the one who denies the obligation of zakah, the one who denies the obligation of fasting Ramadan, the one who denies the prohibition of zina, the one who denies the prohibition of intoxicants, the one who denies the prohibition of undutifulness to parents, the one who denies the prohibition of shedding the blood of a Muslim without right, the one who denies these matters is a disbeliever by consensus, and his saying: "There is no god but Allah" does not benefit him, and his not associating anything with Allah in terms of idols or graves or the like does not benefit him. Because he has committed a nullifier of the nullifiers of Islam, and whoever commits a nullifier of the nullifiers of Islam, the remaining matters he has do not benefit him.
And so, if he shows contempt for the mushaf (written copy of the Qur'an), he is a disbeliever by consensus, even if he says: "There is no god but Allah," and even if he does not associate anything with Allah. So if he sits on it in contempt for it, or urinates on it, he is a disbeliever by consensus. Because he has shown contempt for the speech of Allah and despised the speech of Allah, which indicates his lack of respect for Allah and his lack of respect for His speech, (Glorified and Exalted is He). And by this, you know that his saying (peace and blessings be upon him): ... is only regarding the one who says it and does not commit a nullifier of the nullifiers of Islam. As for if he says it and commits a nullifier, he is a disbeliever by consensus, and this word does not benefit him. Just as the one who performs the Shari'ah ablution has performed the Shari'ah purity for him to pray, but if he commits a nullifier, such as passing wind after ablution or urinating, this ablution is invalid and this purity does not benefit him. Because he has committed a nullifier that invalidates it. So likewise, the one who commits a nullifier of the nullifiers of Islam, his saying: "There is no god but Allah" or the testimony that there is no god but Allah, or his not associating anything with Allah, does not benefit him. Because he has committed something that invalidates his religion and invalidates his Islam.
The second doubt: The hadith of 'Ubadah in This is a weak hadith that is not authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). And it is also from the hadiths of virtues.
And even if it were authentic, it would be restricted to the one who preserved it but committed some deficiency in it, without abandoning it; rather, a flaw occurred in some of its matters that does not make him an abandoner of it or a denier of it. This is the case of the one who commits sins under the will of Allah, if he prays but neglects something obligatory in it, such as bowing to it at times, or neglects things that do not place him in the ruling of those who abandon it. This person may have a deficiency in his prayer, and his work is completed for him by his voluntary prayers, as in the second hadith, the hadith of Abu Hurayrah: So if it were authentic, it would be interpreted as him having committed some deficiency, and his obligatory prayer is completed, and his ruling is not the ruling of one who abandoned it. This is unlike the one who abandons it permanently or abandons some of it, such as one who prays the midday prayer but not the dawn prayer, or prays the afternoon prayer but not the sunset and night prayers, or the like of that. Whoever abandons some of it has the ruling of one who abandoned it all. We ask Allah for safety.
As for the third doubt: the hadith: .. , these are weak hadiths that are not authentic from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Even if they were authentic, the meaning would be: Pray behind the one who said: (There is no god but Allah) if he said it with truth and stood firm upon it. And likewise , meaning: if he said it and committed to its meaning and fulfilled its right. As for the one who said it and nullified it with shirk (associating partners with Allah) or nullified it with types of kufr (disbelief), it does not benefit him. The hypocrites say: There is no god but Allah, and they pray with the people, fast, and perform Hajj, and they are disbelievers; because they nullified it with their inner disbelief and their inner belief and their lying to Allah in the inner sense. So likewise, the one who said it—as mentioned before—and insulted the religion or insulted the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) or insulted Allah, or mocked the religion, or belittled the mushaf (written copy of the Qur'an), or the like of that, then his saying: (There is no god but Allah) does not benefit him; because he committed a nullifier that nullifies this statement and indicates his kufr (disbelief) and that his saying: (There is no god but Allah) is not truthful, but rather he has a degree of belittling of Allah and His rulings and His Shari'ah (Islamic sacred law) that makes his faith nonexistent and this statement invalid; because he said a word that has no reality, and it is not supported by faith and belief. We ask Allah for safety. Yes.
The presenter: May Allah reward you with good.