Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Treatise on Prayer Quotes

“Salah will be the last thing to be lost in Islam; after it has gone, nothing will remain of the religion. It is the first of his deeds about which the slave will be asked on the Day of Resurrection, and it is a central pillar of Islam. If the pillar falls, the whole pavilion will fall. The pegs and the ropes will not suffice. If the Salah is lost, the Islam is lost.”
― Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Treatise on Prayer

“When you lose the obligatory while striving for the optional, you are like the merchant who looks only at his profits without deducting his capital expenditure, so he spends all of the 'profit' and is left with neither profit nor capital.”
― Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ahmad ibn Hanbal’s Treatise on Prayer