Hanzalah bin Abu Sufyan narrates: I heard Ikrimah bin Khalid narrating this hadith to Tawus. A man asked Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Umar (may Allah be pleased with him): Why do you not participate in jihad? Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) replied: I heard the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) say:“Islam is built upon five things: Bearing witness that there is no god but Allah, establishing prayer, giving zakat, fasting in Ramadan, and performing Hajj to the House of Allah.”

(Imam Ibn Hibban, may Allah have mercy on him, says:) These two narrations, in which there is a specific context to the wording, because the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned faith and then mentioned four characteristics for it, then he mentioned Islam and mentioned five characteristics for it. This is the situation about which we have already stated in our books that the Arabs, in their idiom, mention something along with a specific number, and by mentioning that specific number, it is not meant that anything beyond that number is negated. Similarly, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) did not mean that faith consists only of those matters mentioned in the narration transmitted from Sayyiduna Ibn Abbas (may Allah be pleased with him). Because the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) has mentioned in other narrations many other things as being part of faith, which are not mentioned in these two narrations transmitted from Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both) and Sayyiduna Abdullah bin Abbas (may Allah be pleased with them both), which we have just mentioned.