Daily prayer: preparation, units and sources for learning the method.
Prayer and remembrance
The Qur’an connects prayer with remembrance of Allah (20:14), describes it as a timed obligation (4:103), and associates it with restraint from indecency and wrongdoing (29:45). Learning the movements is part of learning prayer; attention, sincerity and ethical conduct also belong to its purpose.
The five daily prayers
The ordinary obligatory units are Fajr 2, Dhuhr 4, Asr 4, Maghrib 3 and Isha 4. Additional recommended prayers are counted separately. Travel, illness and other circumstances have specific rules, so this list is not a ruling for every situation. Use the prayer-times tool with your location, calculation method and Asr setting, then compare it with the timetable followed by your local community.
Learning the sequence
Prepare through ritual purification, appropriate clothing, a clean place and the direction of the Ka‘bah. A teaching sequence includes intention, the opening takbir, standing recitation, bowing, standing upright, two prostrations with a sitting between them, and the concluding sitting and salutations. The detailed recitations, hand positions and some other practices differ between legal traditions. The Sunni guide and Ja‘fari source below identify their own methods; they should not be combined into an unlabelled universal manual.
Read the Qur’anic references
Sources and further reading
Islamic Relief UK — step-by-step Sunni prayer guide
Office of al-Sistani — obligatory daily prayers (Ja‘fari)