Home > The 40 Hadith of Nawawi > Hadith 3 of Nawawi
Hadith number 3 of the collection of the 40 hadiths of Imam an-Nawawi, in faithful English translation.
Contents
Updated on 07 October 2026 at 4:51 AM
📖 13 min readThis hadith belongs to the collection of the 40 hadiths of Imam an-Nawawi (may Allah have mercy on him), the most studied hadith compilation in the world: foundations of faith, worship and character, all authentic narrations.
The aim is the comparison of Islam to a building, and the pillars of this building are these five: the building does not stand without them, while the rest of the features of Islam act as the plaster of the building. When something of these disappears, the building is maimed but remains standing, and does not collapse from that shortcoming, unlike the loss of these five pillars: Islam is abolished by their total loss beyond dispute. Likewise it is abolished by the loss of the two testimonies.
The two testimonies mean: faith in Allah and His Messenger. It came in a version cited by al-Boukhari in commentary: "Islam stands on five: the testimony of faith in Allah and His Messenger," and he mentions the rest of the hadith. And in a version of Mouslim: "on five: on the oneness of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic"; and in another version of him: "on the worship of Allah and the disavowal of what is besides Him."
By this we know that faith in Allah and His Messenger is included within Islam, as was established previously in the earlier hadith.
As for the performance of the prayer: multiple hadiths indicate that whoever abandons it leaves Islam. In the Sahih of Mouslim, from Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Between a man, and polytheism and disbelief, stands the abandonment of the prayer." A similar report comes in the hadiths of Bourayda, Thawban, Anas and others.
Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi reports from the hadith of 'Oubada ibn as-Samit (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "Do not abandon the prayer deliberately, for whoever abandons it deliberately leaves the religion." And in the hadith of Mu'adh (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "The head of the matter is Islam, and its pillar is the prayer." He made the prayer like the pole of a tent: the tent stands and holds only by it; if the pole falls, the tent falls, and it does not stand without it.
'Omar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "There is no share in Islam for whoever abandons the prayer." Sa'd (may Allah be pleased with him) and 'Ali ibn Abi Talib (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Whoever abandons it has disbelieved." 'Abdallah ibn Chaqiq said: "The Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) saw, among the deeds, no abandonment that constituted disbelief except the prayer." 'Ayyoub as-Sakhtiyani said: "The abandonment of the prayer is disbelief, without divergence." And a group of the Ancients and the Moderns went to this opinion; Ibn al-Moubarak, Ahmad and Ishaq cite it, and Ishaq cites the consensus of the people of knowledge for it. Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi said: it is the opinion of the majority of the people of hadith.
[Whoever abandons anything of the pillars of Islam]: and some of them went so far as to say that whoever deliberately abandons any of the five pillars of Islam is thereby a disbeliever. This is reported from Sa'id ibn Joubayr, Nafi' and al-Hakam, and it is a narration of Imam Ahmad chosen by some of his companions, and it is the opinion of Ibn Habib among the Malikites.
Ad-Daraqoutni and others report from the hadith of Abu Hourayra (may Allah be pleased with him): it was said, "O Messenger of Allah, the pilgrimage every year?" He said, "Were I to say yes, it would become obligatory for you; and were it to become obligatory, you would be unable to do it; and were you to neglect it, you would disbelieve." Al-Lalakaï reports by way of Moumammal: Hammad ibn Zayd reported to us, from 'Amr ibn Malik an-Nakri, from Abu al-Jouzai, from Ibn 'Abbas, and I do not think it is other than raised: "The stakes of Islam and the foundations of the religion are three, upon which Islam was established: the testimony that there is no god but Allah, the prescribed prayer, and the fast of Ramadan. Whoever abandons one of them is thereby a disbeliever whose blood is lawful. You will find him rich in wealth having not performed the pilgrimage: he remains thereby a disbeliever and his blood does not become lawful; and you will find him rich in wealth without paying the zakat: he remains thereby a disbeliever and his blood does not become lawful."
And Qoutayba ibn Sa'id reports it from Hammad ibn Zayd in abbreviated suspended form. And Sa'id, brother of Hammad, reports it from 'Amr ibn Malik with this chain in raised form, and he says: "Whoever abandons one of them is, by Allah, a disbeliever, and neither exchange nor compensation is accepted from him, and his blood and his wealth become lawful." And he does not mention what follows. It is also reported from 'Omar (may Allah be pleased with him) that he imposed the jizya on one who had not performed the pilgrimage, and he said: "they are not Muslims." And from Ibn Mas'oud (may Allah be pleased with him), that whoever abandons the zakat is not a Muslim. And from Ahmad, in a narration, that the abandonment of the prayer and the zakat specifically is disbelief, without the fast and the pilgrimage.
Ibn 'Ouyayna said: the Mourji'a named the abandonment of obligations a sin comparable to the commission of illicit things. But the two are not equal; for committing illicit things deliberately without considering them lawful is disobedience, whereas the abandonment of obligations, without ignorance or excuse, is disbelief. The illustration of it is the command to Iblis, and the scholars of the Jews who acknowledged with their tongues the sending of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) without practising his laws.
Ahmad and Ishaq argued the disbelief of whoever abandons the prayer from the disbelief of Iblis in omitting the prostration to Adam; and prostration to Allah is greater still. In the Sahih of Mouslim, from Abu Hourayra (may Allah be pleased with him), from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "When the son of Adam recites the verse of prostration and prostrates, Iblis withdraws weeping and says: Woe to me! The son of Adam was commanded to prostrate and he prostrated, and Paradise is his due; while I was commanded to prostrate and I refused: the Fire is for me."
Know that these five pillars are bound to one another, and it is reported that some are not accepted without the others, as in the Mousnad of Imam Ahmad, from Ziyad ibn Na'im al-Hadrami: the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Four things Allah has prescribed in Islam: whoever comes with three will have nothing sufficient in them until he comes with all of them: the prayer, the zakat, the fast of Ramadan and the pilgrimage of the House." And this is a mursal hadith. It is also reported from Ziyad, from 'Oumara ibn Hazm, from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him).
And it is reported from 'Outhman ibn 'Atta al-Khurasani, from his father, from Ibn 'Omar (may Allah be pleased with both of them), that the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "The religion is five, and Allah accepts of one nothing without the others: the testimony that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and messenger, and faith in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, Paradise, the Fire and the life after death, and that is one of them; and the five prayers are the pillar of the religion: Allah does not accept faith without the prayer; and the zakat is purification of sins, and Allah accepts neither faith nor prayer without the zakat. Whoever does these three, then Ramadan comes and he deliberately neglects its fast: Allah accepts from him neither faith, nor prayer, nor zakat. Whoever does these four, then the pilgrimage becomes easy for him and he does not perform it, and he does not recommend his pilgrimage, and none of his family performs it for him: Allah does not accept from him the four that He accepted from him before."
Ibn Abi Hatim mentions it and says: I asked my father about it and he said: it is a decried hadith; it may be the words of 'Atta al-Khurasani. I say: the apparent is that this is his explanation of the hadith of Ibn 'Omar; and 'Atta is among the notables of the scholars of Syria. And Ibn Mas'oud (may Allah be pleased with him) said: "Whoever does not pay the zakat has no prayer." And the denial of acceptance here does not mean the negation of validity nor the obligation to repeat by way of abandonment; rather it means the absence of approval, and the praise of its doer, and his ennoblement thereby before the supreme assembly, and his presentation to the angels. Whoever performs these pillars as they should be performed obtains acceptance in that sense. Whoever performs some of them without the others does not obtain that, even if he is not punished for what he has done, the sanction falling upon the one who abandoned the rest; yet he disavows himself of it, and may even be rewarded for it.
From this we know that committing certain illicit things which undermine faith bars the acceptance of certain obediences, even pillars of Islam, in the sense we have mentioned, as the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "Whoever drinks khamr, his prayer will not be accepted for forty days." And he said: "Whoever goes to a diviner and believes what he says: his prayer will not be accepted for forty days." And he said: "Any servant who flees his masters: his prayer will not be accepted."
The hadith of Ibn 'Omar serves as proof that when a name embraces several things, it is not necessary that the name be abolished by the loss of some of them; thus collapses the saying of whoever claims: if deeds entered into faith, it would be necessary for faith to be abolished by the loss of a deed entering into its designation, for the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) made these five pillars the foundations and structures of Islam, and gave them as the explanation of Islam in the hadith of Jibril and in the hadith of Talha ibn 'Obaydillah, where a bedouin asked the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) about Islam and he explained it to him by these five. Yet the objectors say: the objectors over faith say that if a single characteristic of Islam were to disappear, or four characteristics except the two testimonies, he would not thereby leave Islam. And some of them report that Jibril asked the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) about the laws of Islam, not about Islam. And this wording was not authenticated by the imams of hadith and their critics, among them Abu Zur'a ar-Razi, Mouslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Abu Ja'far al-'Ouqayli and others.
The scholars compared faith to a tree having a root, branches and twigs: the name of the tree embraces all of that; and if something of its twigs and branches were to disappear, the name of tree would not disappear from it; one would say rather: it is an incomplete tree, or such other is more complete than it! Allah struck the example of faith thus in His words: "Do you not see how Allah strikes the example: a good word like a good tree, whose root is firm and whose branches are in the sky, giving its fruit in every season by the permission of its Lord." The word intended is the word of tawhid; its root: the tawhid established in the hearts; its fruits: the good deeds that issue from it. And the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) compared the believer and the Muslim to the palm tree; and if something of the branches of the palm and of its fruits were to disappear, that would not have made it entirely lose the name of palm, even if incomplete in branches or fruits.
Jihad was not mentioned in this hadith of Ibn 'Omar although it is the best of deeds. In a narration it was said to Ibn 'Omar (may Allah be pleased with both of them): and jihad? He said, "Jihad is good, but this is how the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) reported it to us." Reported by Imam Ahmad. And in the hadith of Mu'adh ibn Jabal (may Allah be pleased with him): "the head of the matter is Islam, its pillar is the prayer, and the top of its summit is jihad." The top of its summit: the highest of what it contains; but it is not among the foundations nor the pillars upon which it is built, for two reasons. The first: jihad is a collective obligation according to the majority of the scholars, not an individual obligation, unlike these pillars. The second: jihad is not continued until the end of time, for when 'Issa (peace be upon him) descends and no religion remains other than Islam, war will lay down its burden and jihad will be dispensed with. Unlike these pillars: they are obligatory upon the believers until the command of Allah comes, and they remain upon that. And Allah the Sublime, the Most High, knows best.