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The Kinds of Prayer

            The following are the various kinds of prayer:

1.         Obligatory (Fard), which includes the five daily prayers and the Friday’s noon congregational prayer. Failure to observe these prayers on time is a serious and punishable sin. However, funeral prayer which is known as “Farad Kifayah” in Arabic, which is a collective duty, is also obligatory in the sense that if no one comes out to perform the prayer on a deceased Muslim in a given community, the community as a whole is deemed sinful in the sight of Allah, but if it is performed by some of the people, then, the rest of the community are absolved of the sin.

2.         Supererogatory (Wajib and Sunnah), which includes the prayers accompanying the obligatory services, and the congregations of the two great festivals (Eeds). Failure to observe these is a harmful negligence and a reproachable conduct.

3.         Optional prayer which includes all voluntary prayers at any time of the day or the night. Two periods have a special preference: the later part of the night until just before the breaking of the dawn and the mid-morning period.