The Importance of Performing Prayers

Performing the five obligatory daily prayers is one of the five fundamental requirements of being a Muslim. It is also given the highest priority in the Holy Quran and is the second of the five pillars of Islam. 

Among the great benefits of performing the prayers are:

Firstly, it trains us to be disciplined in our time management, in terms of punctuality in observing the differing times and managing the five prayers of Subh, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isya’ in the midst of our daily busy schedule. Secondly, it trains our mind, soul and body to focus on the mighty creator, Allah s.w.t. as a reminder to us our objective in life and that we will one day die and return to our mighty creator, bringing with us all our deeds and doings in our short journey called life.  In this way, our mind will have to ‘switch off’ from the worldy activities and focus on expressing our gratitude to Allah and get closer to Him, ask that we remain on His path, and protect us from doing any indecency, as stated in the Hadith which means that “Performing prayers restrains one from shameful and evil deeds.”  Furthermore, we also need to be in Toma’ninah state by emptying our mind and focussing our thoughts solely on Allah.  In other words, Prayers is a form of one-to-one personal communication between His slave to Allah. Last but not least, it provides positive therapy to the mind, soul and body through performing all the 13 ‘rukuns’ or compulsory steps which involve reciting versus from the Quran, and the body taking different standing and bending postures.  Whilst performing the different postures, it increases the blood flow towards our torso, increases fresh blood supply to our brain and at the same time, provides a form of relaxation to our entire physical body, which in turn, releases tension from the whole body.

In conclusion, performing prayers is important for our mind, soul, body,  and most of all our iman. We gain countless benefits by performing prayers in various aspects. Indeed, without any doubt, there is a curing effect in every prayer that we perform, provided every prayer is performed with the greatest level of  sincerity and humbleness.