This bad trait and disposition...

This bad trait and disposition, which causes man to put off his duties, is considered as an undesirable habit both by the believer and the unbeliever. Of course, this quality is uglier for a believing man because if he gets used to putting off his obligations for later, bit by bit this quality becomes his permanent disposition of mind and spreads by contagion to his religious obligations too, resulting in his not performing divine obligations on time.

That is the reason why it has been said that if a man were lazy in his worldly affairs, this quality gradually becomes his permanent trait of mind giving rise to carelessness and negligence being extended to matters of the hereafter. The second stage of procrastination is laziness in performing religious obligations and duties.

This indolence, based on the three divisions of obligatory duties, is also divided into three sections: Laziness and carelessness at performing long and time-consuming obligatory deeds, like the five daily prayers, every one of which has its own specified long time. Some people are lazy and torpid at performing these kinds of prayers, and always put them off to be performed at the last moments.

Even if this kind of indolence and carelessness is not haram (prohibited by Islamic laws), it is still considered as an indecent act.

Laziness at performing obligatory actions that ought to be done with immediacy, even if their urgency is not absolute, in the sense that if they are not discharged at the first opportunity, they have to be fulfilled with urgency at the second opportunity and likewise if they have not been performed at the second opportunity, they have to be discharged at the other opportunities; like repentance, whose incumbency is obligatory at the first opportunity and whose putting off is forbidden [ haram ] by Islamic law but it does not imply that its incumbency is nullified if procrastinated.

Laziness and heedlessness with regard to discharging limited-time obligatory works, like fasting, which ought to be done within a restricted and limited time. Some people procrastinate at discharging these responsibilities within their specified time and tell themselves that they will make up for them later in the form of qada’ (belated religious obligations performed outside their prescribed time).