By: Giselle Acosta
A medieval Quran, the holiest text in Islam and the guiding light for Muslim prayer.
If you woke up at dawn in tenth-century Baghdad, you might be surprised to find you weren’t the only one awake. You could have stumbled upon your host chanting, hands and head pressed to the ground. At that moment, you would have witnessed fajr, one of the five prayers Muslims pray every day. Then, as now, both belief in and performance of those prayers is the foundation of all Islam.
In the larger scheme of Islam, prayer is one of the five pillars drawn from the Prophetic tradition. Said pillars are as follows: the pillar of the testimony that there is only one God and Muhammed is His messenger; the pillar of salat, or prayer; the pillar of zakat, or payment of the alms-tax; the pillar of hajj, or pilgrimage; and the pillar of sawm, or fasting during the month of Ramadan.
The importance of the second pillar, prayer, is stated over and over in Muslim holy texts. In one story from the hadith, Muhammed answers the question, “Which deed is the dearest to Allah?” with “To offer the prayers at their early stated fixed times.” Accordingly, Muslims believe that prayer is the first act Allah made obligatory for them. It is required five times a day for all Muslims of sound mind who’ve reached puberty.
Also according to the Quranic text, Muslims are religiously obligated to perform wudu’, or purification, before prayer. This requirement is laid out in a verse, but its most important part is niyya, or intention. If Muslims sincerely believe in the spiritual power of their actions, they cannot do them incorrectly.
Any of these requirements, if intentionally forsaken, pose serious spiritual consequences. If you intentionally miss prayer in Islam, you are subject to disciplinary action, accusations of heresy, and even renunciation of your religion. The Prophet himself made clear that Allah will not take those offenses lightly. According to Muslim tradition, he’s quoted as saying, “The first act that the slave will be accountable for on the Day of Judgement will be prayer. If it is good, then the rest of his acts will be good. And if it is deficient, then the rest of his acts will be deficient.”
The average medieval Muslim likely followed those doctrinal mandates daily. We will never know whether they had the proper niyya, which could have potentially invalidated all their actions. However, we do know that practicing Muslims would have taken certain steps to follow the Quran’s orders and outwardly profess their faith.
Medieval Muslims stopped to pray five times per day. Those prayers are the following: fajr, or a four rak’ah (unit) prayer done after dawn and before sunrise; dhuhr, or a four rak’ah prayer done at noon; asr, or a four rak’ah prayer done between noon and sunset; maghrib, or a three rak’ah prayer done right after sunset; and isha’, or a four rak’ah prayer done between twilight and fajr.
Medieval Muslims also prayed sunnah prayers, which are prayers that are highly recommended, but not required. When performed, they are recited alongside the five daily prayers.
Virtually every Muslim who prayed engaged in wudu’ beforehand, per the Quran’s instructions. They purified themselves again even in the middle of prayer if they encountered impurities. In Islam, there are two categories of impurities: hadath, or bodily fluids, and najas, or external impurities like untanned hides and precious metals.
The means of their purification was water, which is considered the ultimate purifying substance in Islam. According to Muslim scholars, water has three degrees of ritual capabilities based on its cleanliness. The only one that can be used in prayer is tahur water, which is believed to be both pure and ritually purifying. It is what medieval Muslims poured over their face, joints, and extremities before prayer.
During prayer, every rak’ah began with a recitation of the opening chapter of the Quran and ended with ta’min—a variation of “Amen.” The intervening time was filled with recitation of Quranic verses and a specific series of bowing, prostrating, and standing up. At the end of a whole prayer, medieval Muslims recited the Testimony of Faith, which was done with one’s backside resting on the ground and the left leg crossed over the right leg.
Despite its heavy spiritual implications, Muslims could atone for prayers unintentionally missed due to things like sleep or forgetfulness. The process is fairly simple and merely requires reciting the prayer with all the usual steps as soon as it’s remembered.
Taken altogether, these highly specific and frequently recurring prescriptions might seem baffling to a non-Muslim viewer. However, for most medieval Muslims, they painted a picture of perfect faith. By bathing, prostrating, and even speaking a certain way, they followed the greatest directive of their god, for which they would one day be rewarded in jannah, or heaven.
Accompanying video: A performance of fajr today, which is probably very similar to fajr as it was performed 1000 years ago.
Sources
Quran Image:
https://smarthistory.org/illumination-quran/
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kuk6HgOH9yQ
Text:
A step by step guide to Islamic prayer
Muhammed al-Bukhārī (d. 870 CE), Sahih al-Bukhari, trans. M. Muhsin Khan: book 9 (times of the prayers)
Wael Hallaq, Shari'a p. 225-231
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