Prayer in Islam " Salat"

Muslim prays at any clean place, they pray in desart

The prayer is the corner stone in Islamic religion. Prayer repeated in Qur'an more than 80 times and the prophet Mohamed called it the mainstay of the Islam.

Muslims preform prayer "salat" 5 times a day. They think that it cleans, purifies their soul and gives them energy to carry on in stressful day. Prayer "salat" consists of many positions like standing up, bowing, prostrating "sojoud" and sitting down, these will teach Muslims some values like humility and submission to god during prostrating. The moment of prostrating is quite and Muslim feel that he is really close to the God. After the last prostrating Muslim sit-down then he finish the salat by turning his head to right then left saying greetings of peace to angels.

"It's a necessity, it takes only five minutes not very long but it's really nice. Only few minutes and you feel rest all day" Khadija said, a Muslim lives in Cardiff.

The time of 5 prayers is determined by the sun movement so the time differs throughout the year. The five are:

• Fajr : the prayer between dawn and sunrise
• Zuhr: should be performed between true noon and the time when objects shadow equals its size
• Asr: prayer the time when an object's shadow equals it in size, to just before sunset.
• Maghrib: Between sunset to the time of twilight disappearance.
• Isha': prayer between the time when the twilight disappears and midnight

There is four stages to prayer of Muslim

• First is Azan: the call for prayer "salat"
• Second is Wudu : ritual cleaning and spiritual purification.
• Third is determination of Qibla direction: Muslim must find the direction to Kaaba in Mecca then turn to it to perform the Salat
• Fourth is prayer itself.

Wudu:

Muslim must do Wudu before the prayer and before other acts of worship, as circulating Kaaba or holding the holy Qur'an. To start Wudu you should has the intention then say " I certify that there is no god but Allah alone with no partner, and I certify that Muhammad is His slave and His Messenger" then starts Wudu.

• Wash your hand three times, during this Muslims sins falls as every drop of water fall.
• Wash you mouth three times then you nose also three times then our face ten our forearm up to the elbows three times then our hair, our ear and finally our feet.

Wudu is considered a worship itself because it is related spiritual matters, when Muslim preforms it slowly with reverence, he become in contact with the god. If there is no water, Muslim can perform wudu with soil and mud in this time it is called Tayammum, this is another evidence that Wudu is related to spiritual matters.