Salah

Salah, also spelled Salat, is the Islamic ritual prayer and one of the Five Pillars of Islam. It is performed five times daily by Muslims facing the Kaaba in Mecca.

The term derives from the Arabic salāh, from the verb salā to pray. The practice consists of prescribed movements—standing, bowing, prostration—and Qur’anic recitations. It is typically performed after ritual ablution (wudu) and can be offered individually or in congregation, most notably in mosques. The call to prayer, or adhan, signals the beginning of each prayer period: Fajr (pre-dawn), Dhuhr (midday), Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (sunset), and Isha (night).

In jurisprudence, Salah is obligatory for sane adults unless excused by illness or travel. Details can vary by tradition; Sunni and Shia practices differ in some aspects and in the arrangement of obligatory and recommended prayers. The Friday prayer (Jumu’ah) has a special status in many communities, replacing the regular Dhuhr prayer with a larger congregational service.

As a given name, Salah is common in Arab and Muslim-majority regions. Notable people include Mohamed Salah, the Egyptian footballer, and Saladin (Salah ad-Din), the 12th-century Kurdish-Muslim military leader.

In Malay and Indonesian, the word salah means wrong or incorrect, illustrating a semantic distinction from the religious term when encountered in non-Arabic languages.