The rhythm of the day: washing, calling, praying

This lesson asks you to identify daily rituals, to describe their role, and to explain how they connect to and affect believers' lives. The curriculum itself names Salah among its examples. The museum offers three observances of the Islamic day, washing, the call and the prayer; your class adds the daily practices of the other traditions. ¹

Put the three observances in the order a believer meets them, and note where each falls in the day. Then ask what a student, a worker or a traveller would have to arrange in order to keep them.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam says that by the third/ninth century the timetable and conduct of prayer were fixed ², and it describes the five daily prayers as differing in length, in whether the recitation is aloud, and above all in time ³. On its account the dawn prayer's time starts with the true dawn and lasts until daybreak, before the sun appears. The noon prayer's starts when the sun passes the zenith and normally lasts until an object's shadow equals its height; the afternoon prayer's starts at that point and normally lasts until the sunlight yellows. The sunset prayer's starts when the sun has gone below the horizon and normally lasts until the red glow of twilight disappears; the night prayer begins then and its normal time lasts to the end of the first third of the night ^{3 4}. In this description the prayer day is measured by the sun and the twilight.

Where the accounts differ. The Kuwaiti encyclopaedia of jurisprudence says that the majority of jurists held that wudu belongs to the earlier revealed laws and is not exclusive to this community, while a minority counted it among this community's distinguishing marks ^{5 6}. It says the jurists agree the adhan is one of Islam's distinguishing public rites but differ on its ruling: a communal obligation for the Hanbalis in residence and the Malikis for town residents, an emphatic sunna per the Hanafis and the sounder Shafi'i view ^{7 8}. The Encyclopaedia of Islam adds that the Shia adhan differs from the Sunni in having an eighth formula, "come to the best work", placed between the fifth and the sixth ⁹, and that the Hanafis say the dawn addition at the end, where others place it between the fifth and sixth formulas ⁹.

There are three kinds of source. One is a hadith collection, Ibn Khuzayma's Sahih, which gives the hadith of Talha ibn Ubayd Allah about the Bedouin: the obligation is "five prayers in the day and night", and what exceeds them is voluntary ¹⁰. One is a jurists' encyclopaedia, the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia, which defines wudu and the adhan and names the school behind each ruling. One is a modern academic encyclopaedia, the Encyclopaedia of Islam. On the adhan's beginning it relays what Muslim tradition says, that the Prophet ﷺ consulted his companions, and also that Becker finds its historical model in Christian worship ^{11 9}. It also says precise studies of how much people pray, by country, sex and other factors, are lacking ¹².

The Encyclopaedia of Islam stresses the flexibility of the law: the noon prayer may be delayed in great heat, and a traveller in haste may combine prayers ³. To describe how a daily rite fits into a worker's or a student's day, which provision from these sources would you cite, and what would you ask someone who keeps the rite to learn whether it is used in practice?

• Wudu: its definition in the four schools, and what the Encyclopaedia of Islam says about where jurists differ on it.
• The adhan: its beginning in Medina as the encyclopaedia gives it, its formulas and where communities differ.
• Salah: the five prayers, their times and shape, and Ibn Khuzayma's hadith.
• The muezzin: the person who calls to prayer from the mosque.

Read Wudu, the call to prayer and Salah. Draw a day as a line, mark where the sources place each observance, and write one question you would ask a classmate who keeps them.