Am I Sinful For Leaving Out the Sunna Prayers?
Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch
Question Summary
Am I sinful for leaving out the Sunna prayers due to my anxiety?
Question Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
It is sinful and prohibitively disliked to habitually leave the emphasized sunna prayers without a valid excuse. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar]
Discerning what is or isn’t a valid excuse can be difficult in some situations. Some excuses are obvious, like traveling or severe sickness, and some are not valid excuses at all, such as laziness. Severe cases of anxiety and/or depression can be very debilitating for many people. To this effect, you must be the judge over your own self.
If you are having an anxiety attack and you find it legitimately difficult and a hardship to do more than the obligatory (fard) and necessary (wajib) prayers, this is a valid excuse, and you are not sinful.
If, however, you find that you have the ability to prayer the emphasized Sunna prayers and are reluctant to do so for reasons such as laziness, slight fatigue, etc…, in such case strive to perform the Sunna prayers and do not allow yourself to become accustomed to leaving them due to these excuses.
Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he then completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and a number of texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.
