Should I take my Shahada and Ghusul Over? – By Shaykh Uthaymeen Should I take my Shahada and Ghusul Over? – By Shaykh Uthaymeen

 Should I take my Shahada Over?
By Shaykh Uthaymeen

Question:

If the person repents and returns to his Lord after having left off the prayer, is it upon him to pronounce the Shahada (testimony of faith) again, and to take a ghusul (ritual shower for purification)?

Shaykh Uthaymeen:

If the person who did not pray repents to Allah the Exalted and begins to pray again, then he will be a Muslim due to his prayer; because the person who becomes a disbeliever due to leaving something, he becomes a Muslim when he begins to perform this action. And in this very prayer he will say, ‘I bear witness that nothing has the right to be worshipped except for Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and messenger.

As for taking the ghusul, then this is based upon the view that the ghusul is an obligation when the disbeliever enters into Islam. Thus those who say that when the disbeliever enters into Islam the ghusul is an obligation upon him they hold the view that the person who begins to pray again must make ghusul. As for those who say that it is not obligatory for the disbeliever who enters into Islam to make ghusul, they say it is not obligatory for this person to make ghusul. And there is no doubt that it is better for the person to make ghusul as to exit from the difference of opinion between the scholars and to free himself from blame.

Translated by Rasheed Ibn Estes Barbee
http://mtws.posterous.com/should-i-take-my-shahada-over-explained-by-sh