A lot of people–especially new Muslims–break their heads on this conundrum. What is the difference between fard and wajib? Are they the same? Are they different? What’s the scoop? Why do some people say fard, while others say wajib for the same things?
The answer is simple. According to the majority of scholars, fard and wajib mean the EXACT same thing. There is no difference. They are interchangable. (Recall that fard means: an action that, if performed, entails reward, and if neglected, entails punishment.)
However–there is one exception. The Hanafi madhab differentiates between the two. They say that denying a fard makes you kafir, while denying a wajib does not. Note that here, we’re talking about denying an action, not neglecting it–so if someone says, “no, I don’t have to pray, prayer is not obligatory,” that’s denying a fard, while someone else who says “yes, prayer is obligatory but I don’t feel like praying,” is sinning (major sin).
In the end, it’s like saying “forest” or “trees”–some say fard, and some say wajib, but they’re the same thing.
And Allah, Al-Aleem, knows best. We ask Allah to increase us in knowledge that will benefit us and protect us from knowledge that has no benefit, ameen ya rabbi!
Muhammad Alshareef. Lecture. AlMaghrib. Breach of Covenant. University of Toronto, Toronto. May 2005.
Asak…..masha allah nice article….here you say that the hanafi madhab says that neglecting fardh makes one a kaafir…so if i neglect salaat or sawm (roza) etc…do I become a kaafir???
Thank you so much for clarifying. I have asked many people this and nobody had the answer.
Going on to the kaafir bit, if I miss my prayer, and if makes me a kaafir, what is the point about qadha prayer then? Do I re-affirm my faith or take shahadah again before saying the next prayer or what? Could you please answer.
I have recently come across your website and love it. There are so many useful things to learn here. Jazakallah.
My sincerest apologies, I made a great mistake here, and now it has been corrected; may Allah cover our faults (ameen).
It is not NEGLECTING to perform a fard that makes one kafir, but it is DENYING the fard–saying that it is not fard. And Allah knows best. I have updated the post to include the correct information.
Thanks for clarifying.
Subhanallah, it was the khawarij–one of the extreme earliest sects that fell out of Islam–who believed that sinning makes you a kafir.
Assalam aleikom
Actually the article still has a major error in it; the article says:
***while someone else who says “yes, prayer is obligatory but I don’t have to pray” is sinning (major sin).****
Actually, this is kufr by unanimous consensus of the scholars because saying “I don’t have to pray” is the exact same thing as denying the obligation of prayer. If you say that you dont have to pray you are denying the obligation of salaah.
The issue you are actually misunderstanding is what happens when someone abandons salaah out of laziness, NOT denying that they are obligated to pray. For someone who abandons salaah out of laziness though still beleieving they are obligated to pray, the hanaabilah said they are a disbeliever, whereas the ruling of the Shafi’i, Maliki and Hanafi madh-hab is that they are a faasiq (sinner). You can read more about this here:
http://forums.almaghrib.org/showthread.php?p=197619#post197619
Also, it is inaccurate to say that the distinction for hanafis between waajib and fard is whether denying it is kufr or not. While this is certainly an effect of their classification, the actually distinguishing point between fard and waajid for the ahnaaf is what evidence establishes it. If the obligation is established by Qat’i evidence it is fard, wheras if it is established by dhanni evidence it is waajib. This can be verified by looking up any basic text on hanafi usool.
I hope that the article is corrected, and I think that we should remind ourselves that we are not scholars and if we are in a position where we are spreading knowledge of the deen, we need to continually defer back to real scholars to ensure we are not saying something that is incorrect. One way to do this is to provide a source for where you got the info for such articles, whether a book, a lecture, etc.
May Allah reward you for your good work
Wa aleikom salaam
[...] new Muslims–break their heads on this conundrum. What is the difference between fard and wajib? Are they the same? Are they different? What’s the scoop? Why do some people say fard, while [...]
thanks for good information
if fard and wajib will remain same meaning then why we given two different name’s??
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