As a gesture of submission to the Creator and as a way of showing gratitude to Him for the life and the means of sustenance that He has bestowed upon mankind, one has to abide by the following tenets;
Pray five times a day at stipulated times. This is called “Salat”. Each Salat may take only a few minutes to perform and can be offered at any place, wherever one happens to be at the time or even during travel time. No specific location or place of worship is stipulated. It may be a piece of cloth or grassy or bare land but wherever one offers the prayer the place should be clean. Another essential requirement is that one’s clothes and body should be clean. Before the prayer one has to wash one’s hands, face and feet. (This is called Wudu). In case of severe cold or due to some other plausible reason if one cannot wash one’s feet, and otherwise these are clean and covered in socks, one is allowed to perform ‘Masah’ (wiping with wet hand over the feet or worn socks). In case of non-availability of water the ‘tayamum’ can be performed by wiping face and arms upto elbows with clean dry hands. Details are available in relevant books.
While praying, every one has to turn his face in the direction of the ‘KABAH’ in Makkah, the Holy City sanctified by Allah. Salat may also be offered at specific places called Masjid (Mosque) where the people congregate for prayers five times a day. Collective prayers are preferable as these create a sense of brotherhood, mutual understanding, and unity in the community. The choice of one particular direction in Islamic worship is meant to secure the unity of feeling in the congregation and its form in general creates and fosters, the sense of social equality, in as much as it tends to destroy the feeling of rank or race superiority in the worshippers. The Islamic form of association in prayer is further indicative of the aspiration to realise this essential unity of mankind as a fact in life by demolishing all barriers, which stand between man and man.
Salat, a gesture of submission and gratitude also forms a basis of unity for the whole Islamic world. It also disciplines one’s worldly activities and purifies the ‘Soul’ by repeatedly reminding the people, busy in the hub-hub of worldly life, of Allah and the path of righteousness marked out in the messages of the Holy Qur’an. Thus the chances of straying away from the path of Allah while engulfed in the worldly chores are minimised. The regular short interlude provides a diversion from material to spiritual dimensions and helps release tension, which is physiologically healthy. No other religion offers such corrective discipline.
