Guide for new Muslims · 03 · 6 min
The prayer
The prayer, called salah, is your daily conversation with God. It may be the thing you most look forward to learning — and it is perfectly fine for it to take a little time.
Five prayers a day
Muslims pray five short prayers through the day: at dawn, midday, afternoon, sunset and night. Each prayer takes only a few minutes.
The prayer times follow the sun, and so they shift with the seasons — something very noticeable in Norway. An app or a local mosque can give you the right times where you live.
What a prayer looks like
A prayer is made of set movements and words: you stand, bow, and kneel with your forehead to the ground. Along the way you recite short verses from the Quran and praise God.
The beautiful thing is that Muslims all over the world pray in exactly the same way, in the same language.
How to get started
No one expects you to master it all from day one. Begin calmly:
- Learn the movements of one prayer first
- Learn the short opening chapter, al-Fatiha, little by little
- Use an app or a video until you know it by heart
- Pray in your own language in your heart alongside, so the meaning comes too