How to Pray, Step by Step

This is the one. Salah is the second pillar of Islam and the thing you will do more than anything else — five times a day, every day, for the rest of your life.

It looks like a great deal to learn at once. It is not. The prayer is four positions and a handful of short phrases, repeated in a fixed order. Once you have the shape of two units, every prayer is the same shape repeated.

Learn it slowly. Use English for the parts you have not memorised yet and keep working at the Arabic. A clumsy prayer prayed today is worth more than a perfect one postponed until you feel ready.

Before you begin

Five things, quickly:

• Purity. You have wudu. If you are in the major state you need ghusl first — wudu will not do.
• Time. The prayer's window has begun. Use a prayer times app set to your city.
• Direction. You are facing the qiblah, toward the Ka'bah in Makkah. See below — it is not the direction most people in North America assume.
• Covering. Men from navel to knee at minimum; women covered except face and hands. In practice, loose clothing you can kneel in.
• A clean place. A prayer mat is not required. Clean floor, carpet or grass all work.

Which way to face

In North America, the qiblah is northeast — not southeast.

Almost everyone gets this wrong at first, and for a sensible reason. On a flat map, Makkah sits down and to the right of North America, so southeast feels obvious. But the Earth is a sphere, and the shortest line between two points on a sphere is not the one a flat map draws. From North America that line runs up over the top of the world and comes down into Arabia. You face northeast.

How far northeast depends where you are

The angle shifts as you move across the continent, and it is worth knowing roughly which end you are at:

• Eastern North America — Toronto, Montreal, New York, the Maritimes: close to true northeast. Halfway between north and east is a good approximation.
• Central North America — Chicago, Winnipeg, Texas: still northeast, but tilted somewhat further toward north.
• Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest — Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle: noticeably more northerly. Think north-northeast — a third of the way from north toward east, rather than halfway.
• Far north — Yukon, Alaska: very close to due north.

Finding it without a phone

If you know where north is, you can work out the rest. And you can always find north:

• The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
• At midday the sun sits due south. Your shadow at that moment points due north.
• Face north, then turn part of the way toward east — a third of the way if you are out west, halfway if you are out east. That is your qiblah.

This is worth practising deliberately once or twice, because it is the method that works in a hotel room, a hospital, a rest stop, or anywhere your phone is dead or wrong.

Why the app is not always right

The calculation in a qiblah app is reliable. The compass is the weak part. A phone's magnetometer is easily thrown off by metal, magnets in phone cases, laptops, car frames, and the steel in building structures — and it often needs recalibrating without saying so.

A better way to use one: check it outdoors, away from metal, and note the bearing number it gives for your city. That number does not change. Then you can orient yourself anywhere in town without trusting a wobbling needle.

The shape of it

Four positions. Everything else is the order you move through them and what you say in each.

One rak'ah — one unit — is: stand and recite, bow, stand up again, prostrate, sit, prostrate again. Prayers are two, three or four of these.

Two rak'ah, step by step

This is the shape of Fajr, and the building block of every other prayer.

The first rak'ah

1. Stand facing the qiblah and be still. Look at the spot on the ground where your forehead will go.
2. Intend the prayer in your heart — which prayer it is, and that it is for Allah. Say nothing aloud. Many are also taught to seek refuge and say Bismillāh quietly at this point, before entering the prayer. That is a good habit; it does not replace the seeking of refuge in step 4.
3. Raise your hands to your shoulders or ears and say the takbīr. From this moment you are in prayer — no speaking, no turning, no scratching unless you must.
4. Place your right hand over your left on your chest, and say the opening praise.
5. Seek refuge, and say Bismillāh, immediately before the recitation.
6. Recite Al-Fatihah. This is obligatory in every single rak'ah.
7. Recite a short surah after it.
8. Say the takbīr and bow. Back flat, hands gripping your knees, head level with your spine. Glorify your Lord three times.
9. Rise up with the words below, and stand completely still before going down.
10. Say the takbīr and prostrate. Seven points touch the ground: forehead, nose, both palms, both knees, and the toes of both feet. Glorify your Lord three times.
11. Say the takbīr, sit up, and say the du'ā' between the two prostrations. Settle — do not bounce.
12. Say the takbīr and prostrate a second time, exactly as before.

The second rak'ah

1. Rise to standing, saying the takbīr.
2. Recite Al-Fatihah, then another short surah. A different one if you know one; the same is fine.
3. Bow, rise, and prostrate twice — identical to the first rak'ah.
4. Sit back and recite the tashahhud, then the blessings on the Prophet ﷺ.
5. Make du'ā' for anything you wish, in any language.
6. Turn your head to the right and give the salām. Then to the left, and repeat it.

That is the prayer.

◇ Scholars differ

Where the hands rest while standing. Some schools place them on the chest, some below the navel, and some hold that letting them hang at the sides is also valid. This is the most visible difference between people praying side by side, and it is the one a new Muslim notices first.

If you look along a row and see three different hand positions, nobody there is doing it wrong. Do what your masjid teaches.

The words

In the order you will say them.

Entering the prayer, and in every change of position

After the opening takbīr

◇ Scholars differ

When to seek refuge. The usual teaching places it inside the prayer — after the opening takbīr and the opening praise, immediately before Al-Fatihah — because the Qur'an ties seeking refuge to the act of recitation, and the recitation happens within the prayer.

Many people are also taught to seek refuge and say Bismillāh before beginning, while settling their intention. This is a sound habit and nothing is lost by it. What matters is that it is not left out before the recitation.

There is also a difference over whether it is said in every rakʿah or only the first. Ask your imam which your community follows.

Al-Fatihah — in every rak'ah, without exception

Say Āmīn after finishing it.

Notice the turn in the middle. The first half speaks about Allah. Then at iyyāka naʿbudu it switches to speaking directly to Him, and stays there. You praise, and then you are in conversation.

A short surah after it

Any passage you have memorised. Al-Ikhlāṣ is four lines and is more than enough to begin with.

In the bow

Rising from the bow

In prostration

Asking, while you are down there

Once you have said Subḥāna rabbiya-l-aʿlā three times, you have done what is required. But do not get up yet.

This is the single most valuable thing on this page, and most people are never told it. The lowest physical position a human being can take is the point at which you are nearest to God, and it is the moment He has told you to ask.

So ask. For your mother. For your marriage. For the thing you cannot say out loud to anyone. Sujood is not a posture to get through on the way to standing again.

Two short ones to learn

◇ Scholars differ

Can I make duʿā' in English? Inside the obligatory prayer, this is a real disagreement. Some schools hold that only Arabic should be spoken within the prayer. Others permit supplication in one's own language, particularly for someone who does not yet know Arabic.

What everyone agrees on: you may pray in your own language, at any length, immediately after the salām — and in voluntary prayers, at night, and at any other moment of your life.

So while you are still learning: say the Arabic you know in sujood, and then pour out whatever you need in English the moment you finish. Ask your imam which position your community follows before you settle into a habit.

Sitting between the two prostrations

This is the moment most easily rushed past, and it is one of the sweetest parts of the prayer — a short pause in which you ask for five things at once.

If that is too much at first, the shorter form is enough:

Sitting at the end

As you recite this, watch for the highlighted words near the end. Those are the testimony — the shahadah, inside the prayer. Raise your right index finger when you reach them.

You are not pointing at anything. The single raised finger is itself a statement of the oneness of Allah — made with your body while your mouth says it. Point toward the qiblah, and rest your gaze on the finger rather than letting it wander.

Scholars have taken from this that the gaze rests on the finger, and that iron is not what harms Shaytan — the declaration of Allah's oneness is.

◇ Scholars differ

How long the finger stays raised. You will see both in any row of people praying, and neither is a mistake.

Some raise the finger only at the testimony — the Hanafi school raises it at lā in ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh, at the moment of denial, and this is the practice most new Muslims are shown first.

Others keep it raised through the whole tashahhud and the blessings and the duʿā' that follows, moving it while supplicating. This is drawn from the narration above, in which Ibn ʿUmar is described pointing throughout his sitting; Ibn Taymiyyah held it recommended during both the tashahhud and the supplication.

Do what your masjid teaches. If you see the person beside you doing something different, that is this — not an error.

Leaving the prayer

Three and four rak'ah prayers

Maghrib is three. Dhuhr, 'Aṣr and 'Ishā' are four. The difference from what you have learned is small:

1. Pray the first two rak'ah exactly as above.
2. After the second prostration of the second rak'ah, sit and recite only the tashahhud — not the blessings, and no salām.
3. Stand back up and continue. In these later rak'ah recite only Al-Fatihah — no surah after it.
4. At the end, sit for the full tashahhud and blessings, then give the salām.

What people do after the prayer

You will notice that when the congregational prayer ends, most people do not get up. They stay sitting, saying something quietly, often counting on their fingers or a string of beads.

Nobody explains this, and new Muslims often sit there wondering whether they are missing an announcement. They are not. This is adhkār — the remembrance said after each obligatory prayer. It is not required, and your prayer is complete without it. But it is a sunnah with substantial reward, and it takes about two minutes.

1. Seek forgiveness, three times

2. Then say

3. Āyat al-Kursī

The longest of them, and the one with the greatest reward attached — the Prophet ﷺ said that whoever recites it after every obligatory prayer, nothing stands between him and Paradise except death. Learn it in pieces; it will take a while and it is worth it.

4. The tasbīḥ — thirty-three each

This is what the finger-counting is. Three short phrases, thirty-three times each, and then one longer sentence at the end.

Thirty-three plus thirty-three plus thirty-three, plus that one sentence, comes to a hundred. The final sentence is said once — not a hundred times. The whole thing takes about two minutes.

5. The three short surahs

Al-Ikhlāṣ, Al-Falaq and An-Nās — once after each prayer, and three times each after Fajr and Maghrib.

Why people then stand up and pray again

The other thing you will see: some people rise after the congregational prayer and pray two or four more units alone. This is not a correction and they have not made a mistake.

These are the sunnah prayers — optional units attached to certain of the five, which the Prophet ﷺ prayed regularly. They carry great reward and they are not obligatory. Learn the five obligatory prayers first, properly, and add these later. Nobody expects a new Muslim to be praying sunnah units in their first months.

When it goes wrong

I lost count of the rak'ah

Act on what you are most confident of. If you genuinely cannot tell, assume the lower number, complete the prayer, and make two extra prostrations before the salām. These are the sujood as-sahw — the prostrations of forgetfulness — and they exist precisely because this happens to everyone.

I forgot part of it

The same two prostrations cover most omissions. If you left out something obligatory such as Al-Fatihah in a rak'ah, that rak'ah is repeated.

Someone spoke to me, or my phone rang

Ignore it and continue. You may say Subḥānallāh aloud to signal you are praying. Deliberate speech breaks the prayer and you would begin again; a noise around you does not.

I do not know the Arabic yet

Say what you know and use English for the rest, and keep working at it. Al-Fatihah is the priority — learn that first, out loud, with someone listening who can correct your pronunciation.

How to actually learn this

1. Learn the physical sequence first, saying the phrases in English. Do this today.
2. Learn Al-Fatihah in Arabic, a verse at a time, out loud, with someone correcting you.
3. Learn the short phrases in bowing and prostration — they are three words each.
4. Learn the tashahhud in four pieces, one piece a day.
5. Add one short surah.
6. Then the adhkār after the prayer.

Most people reach the end of that list in two or three months. Praying badly the whole way through is part of the process, not a reason to wait.