Why Do We Pray?

"Verily, As-Salat prevents from Al-Fahsha and Al-Munkar." (Surah Al-Ankabut 29:45)

That verse makes a claim that can be tested against experience, and it is where Shaykh Suhaib Hasan begins. The prayer prevents. It is not merely an obligation discharged five times a day and forgotten in between; it is described as doing something to the person who keeps it.

The Question the Booklet Answers

Ask a Muslim why he prays and the usual answer is that it is obligatory. True, and insufficient — it explains the requirement without explaining the point. This booklet supplies the point: what the prayer is for, what it produces in someone who establishes it properly, and why it was placed first among the acts of worship.

It works through what interrupting the day five times does to a person's attention and priorities; how the prayer restrains behavior outside it, as the verse states; and why the texts treat abandoning it as the gravest neglect a Muslim can fall into.

Who Needs This Argument

New Muslims establishing the prayer for the first time, who need to understand it as more than a schedule to satisfy. Young people praying because they were told to and quietly wondering why. Parents and teachers who have been asked "why do we have to?" and answered with "because Allah said so" — a true answer that persuades almost nobody on its own.

Also for anyone whose prayer has become mechanical. Knowing what it is meant to be doing is usually the first step in recovering it.

Related Reading

• A Guide to Salat — how to perform the prayer correctly, from the authentic Sunnah
• The Rationale & Benefits of Salat — the same question treated at greater length
• Establish the Prayers and the Prize is Paradise — on establishing the prayer and what is promised for it