Measuring the Sun With the Body

The prayer not yet mentioned is the afternoon prayer, which comes at the point when the sun reaches a position where the shadow cast is the like of a thing, plus whatever the shadow was at the meridian point. Most people, if they measure their height against their feet — the vast majority of people, what statisticians call two standard deviations, ninety-five per cent of people — will come out at between six and a half and seven feet of their own height, if they have a normal foot size in relation to their height. So if a person literally lies down, puts a quarter at the tip of his head and something at his feet, then gets up and measures it, walking one, two, three, he will find that his height will generally be about seven feet.

And so the traditional Muslims measured the sun with their body — which is again using the body as an act of worship, because measuring the sun's shadow is considered an act of worship; it is part of the remembrance of God. So one would go out and measure. If, for instance, at the meridian, the shadow at the time of the ẓuhr prayer is about two feet, one adds seven to that; so when the shadow reaches nine feet, the time of ʿaṣr has come in. One goes out at about five o'clock and measures it, and finds that it is nine feet, and that means one can pray. That is the afternoon prayer.

So those are the five prayers: the sunset prayer; the evening prayer, which is called ʿishāʾ; the dawn prayer, which is called fajr, which literally means dawn; the post-meridian prayer, which is called ẓuhr; and ʿaṣr, which is the last of them, the afternoon prayer. That is the first pillar — or the second pillar, not including the shahādah.