ṢAlāt

ṢAlĀt

ṢALĀT. The ṣalāt is a ritually prescribed prayer in the Islamic faith. Although the Qurʾān mentions ṣalāt many times, the specific details of how, when, where, and under what conditions to perform the ritual prayer are not minutely described in the Qurʾān. Rather, the early Muslim community formalized the ritual on the basis of the Prophet Muḥammad's example, or sunnah. Such matters as the exact postures, times, conditions, and recitations of the ṣalāt were arrived at thanks to the early community's recollections of the prophet's practice. Inspired by the Qurʾanic decree to emulate Muḥammad as their most beautiful model (uswa al-ḥasana), oral reports called ḥadīth recalling what Muḥammad said or did began to circulate soon after his death. As many spurious ḥadīth also proliferated, eventually they had to be sifted in terms of their reliability on the basis of criteria developed by ḥadīth scholars. In the century after Muḥammad's demise, Muslims sought to consolidate their faith and identity in institutional, legal, and theological terms. To this end, scholars (ʿulamāʾ) and jurists (fuqahā) devoted considerable attention to debating and determining the religious duties of Muslims. What it meant to be a Muslim in terms of doctrines and practices was still in a state of flux, and ṣalāt was part of this process of discovery and construction of identity.

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