Worship and Everyday Practice

Muslim prayer takes many forms. Three of the most common are salah (canonical prayer), dhikr (remembrance of God, which usually involves the repetition of God’s names or a litany), and du‘a (supplication or asking God for a need or desire or for forgiveness).

Each canonical prayer (salah) lasts five to ten minutes, depending on the prescribed number of cycles of standing, bowing, and prostration for that prayer, and on the number and length of Quranic verses recited. Other factors may also influence the length of time a Muslim prays, including the number of additional (non-obligatory) prayers one chooses to perform, and the pace at which one recites the Quran.

The typical congregational arrangement places men’s rows in front and women’s behind, though practice varies: at the mosque surrounding the Ka‘bah in Mecca, men and women pray in mixed circular rows; in many American mosques women pray in an adjacent or parallel space; in others, in balconies or separate rooms. The traditional explanation concerns the physical nature of Islamic prayer, standing, bowing, and prostrating in tight rows, shoulder to shoulder, which most Muslim cultures judged immodest or distracting to perform in mixed rows, for reasons that run in both directions. It is also worth understanding what the arrangement does not mean: unlike a church oriented toward a sanctuary where nearness to the altar has special significance, sacred space in a mosque is the spot directly before each worshipper, identical for everyone, so rows do not rank worshippers; the back row’s prayer is worth no less.

The practical execution of these arrangements is actively debated among Muslims, especially in America. Many Muslim women are content with traditional arrangements; many others have pushed back against cramped or secondary women’s spaces. A movement of mosque architects, scholars, and advocates (including initiatives documenting “women-friendly mosques”) has made real gains, and national Muslim organizations have issued guidance urging mosques to provide women full, dignified access to the main hall, classes, and governance. The Prophet’s own mosque placed no barrier between men’s and women’s rows. Muslim women asking their communities to live up to that standard are working within the tradition, not against it.

Depending on their schedules, Muslims usually do not need to perform all five prayers while at work or school, since the prayers are spread throughout the day. In addition, each of the five prayers has a window of time during which it can be performed. This time frame extends from about one hour to as long as four hours depending on the specific prayer and the time of year, since the times shift depending on the season and length of the day.

Throughout most of the year, the prayer time for the noon prayer does not end while students are at school, so they can perform it when they return home. During the time of year when the prayer time ends while students are still in school, they can take a few minutes during recess or lunch to pray. Students can ask their teachers if they can pray in an empty classroom or library room.

In the case of Muslim firefighters, if they are in the midst of fighting a fire and are unable to take a break to pray, they will perform the missed prayer as soon as they are able to, along with the next prayer.

A mosque, or masjid in Arabic, is primarily a place where Muslims gather to worship God. Muslims may perform their five daily prayers at a mosque, although they can generally pray wherever they have a clean and appropriate place. The most important weekly gathering at a mosque occurs on Friday, when Muslims attend a congregational prayer that includes a sermon, known as the khutbah.

Mosques also function as community centers. Depending on the congregation, they may host Quran and religious education classes, youth programs, lectures, weddings, funeral services, charitable activities, interfaith programs, community meals, and other events.

Mosques generally have an open area where worshippers stand in rows facing the direction of the Ka‘bah in Mecca. They typically do not contain an altar or religious images. Practices vary considerably among communities, including how prayer spaces for women and men are arranged. Like churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship, mosques reflect the cultures and communities that built and use them.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar and the month in which Muslims believe the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad began. During Ramadan, adult Muslims who are physically able abstain from all food and drink from dawn to sunset; they also strive to avoid harmful speech and behavior and devote additional time to prayer, charity, reading the Quran, and spiritual reflection. Fasting in Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

Muslims fast first and foremost as an act of worship and obedience to God, but the Quran also states its purpose: “that you may attain God-consciousness” (2:183). The point is not simply to experience hunger: fasting cultivates self-discipline and gratitude, awakens compassion for those who go hungry involuntarily, and turns attention from physical appetites to prayer, generosity, and the mending of relationships. 

People for whom fasting would cause hardship or harm, children, travelers, those who are ill, and others in particular circumstances, are exempt, making up the fast later or feeding those in need instead. Ramadan is also intensely communal: families and mosques gather nightly for the fast-breaking meal (iftar) and special evening prayers, many Muslims describe it as the most joyful month of the year, and it concludes with Eid al-Fitr, the Festival of Breaking the Fast, celebrated with communal prayers, gatherings, food, and charitable giving. Fasting as spiritual discipline is familiar in many traditions, including Yom Kippur in Judaism and Lent in Christianity.

Fasting is required only of adult Muslims who are physically able. Children are not required to fast, though many choose to practice with partial fasts as they grow older. The elderly, the chronically ill, travelers, and women who are pregnant, nursing, or menstruating are exempt; those with temporary conditions make up the missed days later, while those unable to fast at all may instead feed a person in need for each day missed. Islamic law is emphatic that fasting must not cause harm: a person whose health would be endangered by fasting, including someone managing diabetes, an eating disorder, or another medical condition, is not merely excused but religiously directed not to fast. This reflects a broader Quranic principle: “God intends ease for you and does not intend hardship” (2:185).

The Ramadan fast does include abstaining from water during daylight hours, which often surprises people. For healthy adults, medical research on Ramadan fasting has generally found it safe, and Muslims moderate the practical challenge by eating a pre-dawn meal (suhur), breaking the fast promptly at sunset, and adjusting schedules where possible. The length of the fast varies with latitude and season, since the Islamic calendar is lunar. Scholars have offered accommodations for extreme circumstances, such as Muslims in far northern regions following the timetable of a more moderate latitude. As noted above, anyone for whom fasting poses a genuine health risk is exempt.

Eid means festival or holiday. Islam has two: Eid al-Fitr, the “festival of breaking the fast,” which celebrates the completion of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, the “festival of the sacrifice,” which falls during the Hajj pilgrimage season and commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son in obedience to God, a story shared, with differences, by Jews and Christians. Both holidays begin with a congregational prayer in the morning, followed by feasting, visiting family and friends, gifts for children, and charity so that the poor can celebrate as well. Eid al-Adha traditionally includes the sacrifice of an animal (usually sheep) whose meat is shared with those in need, which many Muslim Americans fulfill through charitable organizations that distribute meat locally or abroad.

The Islamic calendar is lunar, with twelve months of 29 or 30 days, making its year about eleven days shorter than the solar year. As a result, Ramadan and the two Eids move earlier each year relative to the Western calendar, cycling through all the seasons roughly every thirty-three years. This is also why Muslims may observe holidays on slightly different days in different communities: the traditional method of beginning a month is the physical sighting of the new crescent moon, and communities differ on whether to rely on local sighting, sighting anywhere in the world, or astronomical calculation.

Many schools and employers already do, and Muslims deeply appreciate it. Helpful accommodations cost little: allowing an employee to shift hours or take a break at sunset during Ramadan, avoiding scheduling major exams, athletic events, or mandatory social meals on the Eids, permitting a personal day for Eid, and simply learning when the holidays fall. A growing number of school districts, including New York City’s, close for the Eids. Non-Muslim friends and colleagues need not avoid eating in front of someone who is fasting, Muslims do not expect that, but a simple “Ramadan Mubarak” (blessed Ramadan) or “Eid Mubarak” (blessed Eid) is always welcome, much like any holiday greeting. For a practical guide to specific accommodations, see ING’s What Employers and Educators Need to Know About Accommodations for Ramadan and Eid ul-Fitr.

Hajj is the pilgrimage to Mecca performed during a designated week of the Islamic year, and it is the fifth of the Five Pillars, required once in a lifetime of every Muslim who is physically and financially able. Pilgrims retrace rites associated with the Prophet Abraham and his family, including circling the Ka‘bah, which Muslims believe Abraham and his son Ishmael built as the first house dedicated to the worship of the one God. During the Hajj, several million pilgrims from every nation dress in the same simple garments, stripping away distinctions of wealth, race, and rank. Malcolm X’s famous letter from Mecca describes how this experience of human equality transformed his outlook. Hajj embodies the fourth of our five principles: that God created human diversity so that we might know one another and uphold our shared dignity.

The Ka‘bah is the cube-shaped building in Mecca, draped in a black cloth, that Muslims believe was the first house built for the worship of God. Muslims throughout the world face toward the Ka‘bah when they perform each of their daily prayers.

Muslims believe that Adam built the original Ka‘bah and that the prophets Abraham and his son Ishmael later rebuilt and rededicated it to the worship of God.

Muslim scholars have held a range of positions on music for centuries, and the diversity of opinion continues today. The majority position, and the practice of most Muslims historically and today, permits music that does not promote harmful behavior, pointing out that the Quran itself is recited melodically and that devotional song has flourished across the Muslim world, from West African praise singing and South Asian qawwali to contemporary Muslim American hip-hop and folk artists. As in other traditions, the ethical concern is with content and context rather than with melody itself. A minority of scholars have prohibited most instrumental music, basing their view on certain prophetic sayings.

Most classical scholars prohibited permanent tattoos on the basis of prophetic sayings, and this remains the majority view, though some contemporary scholars have revisited the question. Temporary body art, most famously henna, is a long-standing and celebrated practice in many Muslim cultures, especially for weddings and holidays. Ear piercing for women is broadly accepted; other piercings are subject to differing opinions. 

The Quran mentions dogs without condemnation; one passage speaks approvingly of hunting dogs, and another describes a dog faithfully guarding pious youths. The caution some Muslims exercise around dogs comes from prophetic sayings that classify a dog’s saliva as ritually impure, requiring washing before prayer, which led many scholars to discourage keeping dogs inside the home except for legitimate needs such as herding, hunting, guarding, or, by extension today, service and assistance work. Practices vary widely: many Muslims keep dogs, and the Maliki school of law does not consider dogs impure at all. Avoiding contact with a dog is a matter of ritual practice for some Muslims, not a judgment about the animal, and kindness to animals is a firmly established Islamic value; a well-known prophetic saying describes a person who was forgiven by God for giving water to a thirsty dog.

Muslim scholars and families answer this question in different ways, and practice among Muslim Americans varies accordingly. Islam has two religious holidays, the two Eids, and some scholars discourage participating in celebrations that have religious origins in other traditions. Others distinguish between religious observance and cultural custom, noting that holidays such as Thanksgiving and birthdays as commonly practiced in America are not religious rites, and permit or even encourage them as occasions to bring families together with gratitude, values Islam affirms. Halloween generates the widest range of views because of its folk-religious origins, though many Muslim families treat it as the secular neighborhood custom it has become. These are matters on which sincere Muslims differ, and most scholars advise respecting each family’s choice.

This is one of the most practical challenges of Muslim American life, and the community has responded in several ways. A number of Islamic home-financing companies now operate in the United States, using lease-to-own, co-ownership, or installment-sale structures that comply with Islamic finance principles, and some conventional lenders offer similar products. Some scholars have also issued opinions permitting conventional mortgages for Muslims in countries where no viable alternative exists, on the principle that necessity modifies prohibition, particularly given the importance of stable housing for families. Students similarly weigh scholarships, interest-free institutional loans, community lending funds, and differing scholarly opinions about federal student loans. Individual Muslims and families make different choices among these options, often in consultation with scholars they trust.

Traditional Islamic norms discourage private romantic relationships outside of marriage, but they do not prescribe any single method for finding a spouse, and Muslim Americans today meet their spouses in many of the same ways as their neighbors: through family and community networks, school and work, mosque events and conferences, and, increasingly, technology. Several matrimonial apps designed by and for Muslims have millions of users and are framed around the intention of marriage, often with features that accommodate family involvement or chaperoned communication. Families and individuals differ in how they balance parental involvement with personal choice, but the consent of both parties remains an absolute requirement for marriage.

Because the Quran forbids it, as the Torah does for Jews. The reason Muslims most often give is simply obedience to God, not a claim about the pig. Some have speculated about hygienic rationales, but mainstream scholarship discourages resting the rule on theories about health that may come and go; dietary law is understood instead as a discipline of obedience and a marker of religious identity, in the same family as kosher observance, Lenten fasts, or Hindu and Buddhist vegetarianism. The prohibition is about consuming pork and should not extend to disgust at the animal or at those who eat it; Muslims sit at tables where pork is served and simply order something else.

In practice, observant Muslim Americans read ingredient labels for pork derivatives such as gelatin and lard, and scholars differ on boundary cases; some permit substances so chemically transformed that their origin no longer applies, others do not. Like keeping kosher, the practice is easier than outsiders imagine and is largely invisible to colleagues and friends except at mealtime.

Because the Quran prohibits intoxicants, but the way it did so is instructive. The prohibition came gradually over years of revelation: first an observation that wine holds “some benefit, but the harm is greater than the benefit,” then a ban on praying while intoxicated, and finally a complete prohibition. Muslim scholars point to this sequence as a model of how the Quran weaned a drinking culture off alcohol rather than issuing a sudden decree, and as evidence that the underlying concern is harm: to health, judgment, families, and public safety. The category is intoxication itself, which is why most scholars extend the ruling to recreational drugs.

Similar concerns appear in other traditions, from the Buddhist precept against intoxicants to Christian temperance movements and Latter-day Saint practice. In American social life, Muslims navigate the rule in various ways: most simply don’t drink while attending events where others do, some avoid such settings, and no one is authorized to police anyone else’s glass. Many non-Muslim colleagues discover the practice only when a Muslim coworker orders a soda at happy hour and realize in the same moment that it is entirely unremarkable.

Halal is an Arabic word meaning lawful or permitted. The opposite of halal is haram, which means unlawful or prohibited. While the term is used in relation to many aspects of life, when specifically used in relation to food, halal refers to any food product that is not prohibited. In reference to meat products, halal means that the animal was slaughtered humanely according to Islamic guidelines, which include reciting God’s name over the animal before slaughter and draining all the blood from the animal. This practice is similar to the guidelines set by Jewish law that classify meat prepared in a comparable manner as kosher. It is common to find halal butcher shops or restaurants in most major cities in the U.S.

Modesty (haya in Arabic) in Islam is broader than dress: the Prophet Muhammad called it a defining virtue of the faith, and the term covers humility before God, dignity and restraint in behavior and speech, and unpretentiousness, qualities asked of men and women alike. What modesty requires in dress and in interaction between the sexes is understood differently across Muslim cultures and among individual Muslims, which is why Muslim women in the same American mosque may dress quite differently and all consider themselves observing modesty. The concept has analogues in most religious traditions, from “modest apparel” in the New Testament to tzniut in Judaism and plain dress among Anabaptists, and, as in those traditions, its outward forms are inseparable from an inward disposition: modesty directed only at appearances, the scholars insist, misses the point.

The Arabic word hijab was originally used in the Quran to refer to a curtain or barrier that separated the family of the Prophet Muhammad from visitors. Today the term hijab is commonly used to refer either to the modest attire worn by Muslim women, which includes a headscarf, or specifically to the headscarf itself.

The Quran instructs both men and women to be modest, but how this is practiced varies greatly. Many Muslim women follow the traditional scholarly view that women’s dress in public should cover everything except the face and hands. Other Muslim women emphasize the principle of modesty, which takes on different forms as previously described.

Pew surveys have found that majorities of Muslims across a wide range of countries believe women should decide for themselves whether to wear hijab. In practice, a small number of governments impose their views in one direction or the other, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan mandate covering, while France and some other states restrict it. ING regards both compulsion and prohibition as violations of a woman’s right to choose and freedom of religion.

A small minority of Muslim women understand modesty to include covering the face, wearing a niqab (face veil leaving the eyes visible) or burqa (full covering). The majority scholarly position across the four Sunni schools is that face covering is not required; the standard view requires modest dress, which can take different forms, as previously described. In a minority view, it is regarded as obligatory, and in some places, it is more custom than doctrine. What outsiders most often miss is the range of motivations among the women themselves: research among niqab wearers in Western countries finds most describe it as a personal spiritual choice, frequently made against their families’ preferences rather than because of them. ING’s position follows our principles consistently in both directions: governments should neither force women to cover, as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan do, nor forbid them, as several European bans do; both deny a woman’s agency over her own religious practice. It is also fair to note that Muslims themselves debate face veiling, some Muslim scholars discourage it, and Muslim-majority countries span the full range of practices from mandating to restricting it, so the practice should be read as one interpretation within a diverse tradition, not the emblem of Islam.

Men do have obligatory modesty standards in Islam, a fact that is often overlooked. In the Quran’s key passage, the command to men actually comes first: men are told to lower their gaze and guard their chastity (24:30) before women are addressed (24:31). Men’s minimum required covering (from the navel to the knee) is less extensive than women’s, but traditional male dress across the Muslim world, the loose shalwar kameez of South Asia, the jalabiya and keffiyeh of Arab countries, covers nearly as much as women’s dress, and many observant men keep beards, wear a cap, and observe behavioral modesty rules identical to women’s.

The question itself remains: why is the dress standard asymmetrical? The traditional scholarly answer is frank about differences in how male and female bodies are socially seen and desired, an asymmetry nearly all human cultures’ dress norms reflect, religious or not, as any comparison of American swimwear or formalwear confirms. Contemporary Muslims discuss this reasoning candidly, and Muslim women writers span the range from those who experience hijab as liberating them from exactly that asymmetric gaze, to those who question the traditional rules. What nearly all agree on, and what ING insists on, is that observance must be the woman’s own uncoerced choice, and that modesty’s behavioral core, humility, restraint, and dignity, binds men in full measure. A man who polices women’s dress while neglecting his own commanded restraint has the Quran’s priorities backwards.

In Islamic economic thought, money is meant to be earned through work or productive investment, which is one reason that both gambling and most forms of lending at interest are prohibited. While there are different types of interest and not all types are viewed as being the same, many Muslim scholars regard interest as generally prohibited because it penalizes the poor for their lack of money and rewards the rich for their abundance of money, making the rich richer and the poor poorer. On the other hand, investment in business is highly encouraged because it involves some risk to the investor, which makes profit from investment a fair return. Investment also promotes the circulation of wealth and the growth of new businesses.

Applying this principle in a modern economy is a genuine challenge, but Islamic finance is now an established sector: institutions operate in more than eighty countries and industry estimates put global Islamic finance assets at roughly $5 trillion. These institutions generate income through shareholding, leasing, lease-purchase, and profit- and rent-sharing arrangements. Analysts have noted that Islamic banks were comparatively insulated during the 2008 global financial crisis because they held little of the interest-bearing and speculative debt at its center, though, like all financial institutions, they are also exposed to downturns in the economy.

Islam allows and encourages both. A well-known prophetic saying states that God has not created a disease without creating its cure, and seeking treatment has always been understood as fully compatible with trust in God. Classical Muslim physicians such as al-Razi and Ibn Sina wrote about disorders of the mind, and medieval Muslim hospitals included wards for mental illness centuries before such care existed in Europe. Prayer, Quran recitation, and spiritual counsel are sources of enormous comfort for many Muslims, but the scholars ING works with are clear that spiritual practice complements rather than replaces professional care, just as it complements rather than replaces medicine for a broken bone. A growing field of Muslim mental health professionals and organizations now provide culturally and religiously informed therapy, and many imams actively refer congregants to them.

As illnesses and trials, not as signs of weak faith, an unfortunate misconception that Muslim scholars and mental health advocates are working hard to dispel, as their counterparts are in many religious communities. The Quran describes prophets themselves experiencing profound grief: Jacob wept for Joseph until he lost his sight, and the Prophet Muhammad’s biographers describe a period of such sorrow after early revelations ceased, and again after the deaths of his wife Khadija and uncle Abu Talib in the “Year of Sadness,” that these terms entered the tradition. Suffering is never portrayed in Islam as evidence of God’s displeasure; the tradition teaches that hardship can accompany the most beloved of God’s servants. Muslims experiencing depression or anxiety are encouraged to seek professional help, lean on community, and maintain spiritual connection without shame.

Islam teaches the sanctity of every life, including one’s own, and the Quran counsels, “do not kill yourselves; indeed God is ever merciful to you” (4:29). At the same time, contemporary Muslim scholars emphasize God’s boundless mercy and caution strongly against pronouncing judgment on any individual, recognizing that suicide is overwhelmingly the outcome of illness and unbearable pain rather than rebellion against God; the classical tradition itself records that the Prophet Muhammad still prayed for God’s forgiveness for such individuals. The community’s obligation is toward the living: to remove stigma, to notice and reach out, and to connect struggling people with professional help. Muslim mental health organizations now operate helplines and train imams and community members in suicide prevention. This is a sensitive subject, and anyone struggling should know that help exists both within and beyond the Muslim community, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.