Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, eds., Political 

Islam: Essays from Middle East Report (Berkeley: Univer-

sity of California Press, 1997); L. Carl Brown, Religion 

and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York: 

Columbia University Press, 2000); Edmund Burke III 

and Ira Lapidus, eds., Islam, Politics, and Social Move-

ments (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); 

Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics

(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).

polytheism

  See 

idolatry

.

pork

  See 

dietary

 

laws

.

prayer

There are two main forms of prayer in Islam. Litur-

gical prayer (salat), one of Islam’s F

ive

 p

illars

, is 

the primary form of public worship, requiring the 

believer to pray in Arabic, the language of divine 

speech, drawn from the q

Uran

. Salat must be per-

formed facing toward the k

aaba

 in m

ecca

 (the 

qibla

direction, because it is believed by Muslims to be 

God’s sacred “house”) five times daily: dawn (fajr), 

noon (zuhr), afternoon (asr), sunset (maghrib), 

and night (isha). Each time of prayer is preceded 

and announced by the call to prayer (

adhan

) sum-

moning believers to the 

mosqUe

 (Q 50:39–41). 

The number and times of salat are not fully set in 

the Quran, but became established during Prophet 

m

Uhammad

’s lifetime based on his 

sUnna

 (custom-

ary behavior), as recorded in the 

hadith

. The quint-

essential prayer gesture is the prostration (sujud) in 

which the believer first bows from a standing posi-

tion, kneels, and leans forward touching forehead 

to the ground. Muslims are defined in the Quran as 

“those who prostrate themselves” (Q 48:29), and 

the mosque is the “place of prostration” (masjid). 

Since prayer involves no sitting, mosques tradi-

tionally are open spaces having no seating or pews, 

only carpeting or matting on which to stand, kneel, 

and prostrate, along with a pulpit (

minbar

) for Fri-

day noon sermons, and a niche (

mihrab

) indicating 

the direction of prayer (qibla).

In order to be ready to pray, the believer must 

be ritually pure, requiring 

ablUtion

 of the hands, 

arms, face, and feet (wudu), or a full bath (ghusl) 

after menses or sexual relations (Q 5:6, 9). The 

dress code for prayer requires modesty, minimally 

for men covering from navel to knees, and for 

Women

 from neck to ankles, usually including a 

scarf covering the hair. Liturgical prayer in Islam 

can be performed in any clean location. Thus, 

Muslims can do salat in their homes, at their 

jobs, in the street, as well as in the conventional 

location of the mosque. Salat can be performed 

alone or in a group organized in rows led by an 

Men and women at noon prayer in the Sultan Hasan 

Mosque, Cairo, Egypt

(Juan E. Campo)