When There Is a Will There Is a Way

There is the account of a man especially exacting about his prayer, who found himself in the middle of a large shopping centre at the height of the Christmas rush when the time for prayer arrived. No masjid stood anywhere near, and the friend with him wondered where he could possibly pray; he simply led the way to the changing rooms, asked his friend to hold his shirts while he went in to pray, and then, once finished, held his friend's shirts in turn so that he too could go in and pray. Where there is a will, there is a way; where there is none, excuses are never in short supply — supplied from within by the nafs al-ammārah, and from without by Shayṭān, who never runs short of them either.

Returning to the matter of recitation: the disconnected letters cannot stand alone as the recitation within prayer. Reciting Allāhu akbar, the Fātiḥah, then only alif, lām, mīm before another Allāhu akbar, does not suffice; the verses following the letters must be recited too —

save in a case of genuine necessity, this should not be cut shorter still. To memorise enough of the Qur'an to fulfil this requirement of qirāʾah is farḍ upon every Muslim: the whole of Sūrat al-Fātiḥah must be learned, along with a small number of shorter sūrahs to make the prayer possible, and this too is wājib.