Guard your prayer – it is the last thing to be lost from the Religion and the first affair to be accounted for on the Day of Resurrection. (Ibn ‘Uthaimeen)

Shaikh Ibn ‘Uthaimeen (rahimahullāh) said: “Guard your prayers strictly by perfecting the conditions, the pillars and obligations, for indeed the prayer is the last thing to be lost from the Religion and the first affair to be accounted for on the Day of Resurrection. So if you have guarded and preserved your prayer, you will be successful. And if you neglected and wasted your daily prayers, then in the other deeds, there will be even more loss.”

(See volume II of Ad-Diyā’ al-Lāmiʿ min al-Khutub al-Jawāmiʿ.)

Abu Umāmah (Allah be pleased with him) narrated that Allāh’s Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) said:

لتنقضن عرى الإسلام عروة عروة فكلما انتقضت عروة تشبث الناس بالتي تليها فأولهن نقضا الحكم و آخرهن الصلاة

“The handholds of Islām will be undone one by one, and every time a handhold is undone the people will hold fast to the one that follows it. The first of them to be undone is the rule (al-hukm), and the last of them is the prayer (as-salāt).”

(Reported by Ahmad in his Musnad, Ibn Hibbān and al-Hākim. Sahīh al-Jāmiʿ as-Saghīr, no. 5057, of Shaykh al-Albānī who declared it sahīh.)

Abu Hurairah (Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Messenger (salallāhu ‘alaihi wasallam) stated:

إِنَّ أَوَّلَ مَا يُحَاسَبُ بِهِ الْعَبْدُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ مِنْ عَمَلِهِ صَلَاتُهُ فَإِنْ صَلحَتْ فَقَدْ أَفْلَحَ وَأَنْجَحَ وَإِنْ فَسَدَتْ فَقَدْ خَابَ وَخَسِرَ فَإِنْ انْتَقَصَ مِنْ فَرِيضَتِهِ شَيْءٌ قَالَ الرَّبُّ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ انْظُرُوا هَلْ لِعَبْدِي مِنْ تَطَوُّعٍ فَيُكَمَّلَ بِهَا مَا انْتَقَصَ مِنْ الْفَرِيضَةِ ثُمَّ يَكُونُ سَائِرُ عَمَلِهِ عَلَى ذَلِكَ

“The first affair from his actions for which the servant will be brought to account on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayer (salāt). If it was sound, then he will verily succeed and prosper – and if they were corrupted, he will be a loser and be doomed. If anything is lacking from his obligatory prayers, the Lord will say, ‘Look and see whether my servant has any voluntary prayers and use that to make up what is deficient from his obligatory prayer.’ Then all of his deeds will be reviewed in like manner.”

(Reported by at-Tirmidhī, an-Nasā’ī, Ibn Mājah, and al-Albānī graded it as sahīh in Sahīh al-Jāmiʿ as-Saghīr wa Ziyādah, no. 2020.)