The Five Pillars Of Islam: The SECOND PILLAR — Prayer (Salat)
The SECOND PILLAR of Islam is the duty to pray five times daily.
All Muslims men and women alike are required to pray 5 times a day. The five prayer times their names in Arabic and their Qur’anic references are :
- The Dawn Prayer (Fajr in Arabic),given in 11:114, 24:58
- The Noon Prayer (Dhuhr in Arabic) , given in 17:78 and 30:18
- The Afternoon Prayer (Asr in Arabic), given in 2:238
- The sunset Prayer (Maghrib in Arabic), given in 11:114
- The Night Prayer (Isha in Arabic), given in 24:58
The form of Muslim prayer is unfamiliar to many westerners. It involves a series of solemn bowings and prostrations as well as reciting the prayers. The purpose of the bowings and the prostrations is strengthen within the supplicant the Islamic belief that body and spirit are closely and inextricably bonded.
It is important to understand that while the form of prayer is very solemn and ceremonious it isn’t a rite conducted by a priest leading a congregation as found in the Christian tradition.
Islam has no priests who conduct rites. There is no concept of ”Sacrament” in the Christian sense of the word. Thus there is no need to have a hierarchy, or a priestly caste, set aside by ordination to administer a separate sacrament as a visible sign of God’s saving intervention. All of life, a Muslim will tell you, should be lived as a sacrament and every believer stands alone before God even as they pray shoulder to shoulder amongst a crowd of thousands of fellow-worshippers.
The fact that every worshipper stands alone before God makes it entirely acceptable to pray alone nevertheless it is seen as more meritorious to pray in a mosque as part of a congregation. All Muslims, men and women alike, are required to participate in the prayers which are led by an imam. An imam can be anyone from the community who knows the prescribed form of the prayers, typically the Imam is the most learned or respected member of the congregation an Imam is not necessarily a full-time clergyman.
The prayers are virtually identical everywhere, and have not altered their form since the very earliest days of Islam. Muslims proudly proclaim that they are the only people who pray exactly as their Prophet did.
Indexed under: Islam