"The prayer" (salah) is an obligatory worship and one of Islam's five pillars: in Ibn Umar's hadith as Ibn Khuzayma gives it, Islam is built on five things, one of them establishing the prayer 1. Ibn Khuzayma opens his Book of Prayer with a chapter on the first prescribing of the five prayers, relating from Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him), from Malik ibn Sa'sa'a, the Prophet ﷺ's account of the night of the Isra 2 3. In this hadith fifty prayers a day were prescribed at first; then, after Moses advised asking for a lighter duty, they were reduced to five prayers a day 3. In 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 4.
In the Qur'an the command to establish the prayer is joined to the zakat in al-Baqara 43, the prayer is tied to set times in al-Nisa' 103, and times for it are mentioned in al-Isra' 78 5. Al-Tabari explains establishing the prayer as performing it with its limits and obligations, as prescribed 6. He reports from Ibn Abbas that establishing it is the completeness of bowing, prostration, recitation, humility and attention to it 6 7. He notes that salat in Arabic usage means supplication, and holds that the obligatory prayer was so named because the one praying seeks through his act the reward he asks of God, as a supplicant seeks his need through his supplication 7 8.
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