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Dhuhr

Devotional Practices

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Origin 610 to 632 CE

The midday prayer, four units, prayed after the sun has passed its zenith. The recitation is silent. The Hanafi school places the end of its window when a shadow reaches twice an object's length, the other three Sunni schools at once its length, which produces a visible difference in mosque timetables in the same city. On Fridays Dhuhr is replaced for men attending the mosque by the congregational Jumua prayer, which is two units preceded by a sermon and cannot be prayed alone.

The Sunni schools hold that Dhuhr and the afternoon prayer are prayed separately except when travelling, in illness, or in some schools in heavy rain. Twelver Shia jurisprudence holds that the two share a single extended window and may be prayed consecutively without any excuse, and combining them is ordinary rather than exceptional in Shia practice. The visible difference is that many Shia Muslims pray three times a day at three sittings rather than five, while still performing all five prayers.

Facts
Practice
Who Performs It
All adherents of the tradition 1
Obligation
Obligatory 1Tradition: Islam
Frequency
Daily 1
Solitary or Communal
Performed alone or together 1
Liturgical and Scriptural Role
Dhuhr is the early afternoon prayer among the five daily Islamic prayers, performed after the sun passes its zenith. 3
Origins
Origin Period
610 to 632 CE 1
Origin Period
The five daily prayers are fixed within the Prophet's lifetime 1
Place of Origin
Mecca and Medina, Arabia 2
The five daily prayers were fixed within the Prophet's own lifetime.
Form
Posture and Bodily Form
A cycle of rak'as, each one standing with recitation, bowing, two prostrations with forehead to the ground, and sitting 1
Meaning
Literal Meaning
Dhuhr literally means midday or noon, naming the prayer for the time of day it falls at rather than for any distinct rite. 1
Controversy
Point in DisputeSourced to the subject's own account
The Hanafi school ends Dhuhr's window when a shadow reaches twice an object's length while the other three Sunni schools end it at once the object's length, a difference visible in mosque prayer timetables within the same city. 4
Learn More
The Prayer After the Sun Turns

Dhuhr is the second of the five obligatory salah, prayed after the sun passes its zenith and begins to decline, and continuing until the light lengthens into the afternoon prayer's time. It is the longest of the fixed prayers in its obligatory portion: four rak'ah, commonly framed by recommended sunnah cycles before and after. Coming at the height of the working day, it interrupts labour and commerce, and much of its significance in Muslim life lies precisely in that interruption, a deliberate turn from occupation to remembrance at the day's busiest point.

Unlike the dawn, sunset and night prayers, Dhuhr is recited silently: the worshipper reads the Fatiha and a further passage of the Qur'an inwardly rather than aloud. The tradition explains the division by the hours, the audible prayers falling in darkness or its edges, the silent ones in full daylight, though it is received as an established practice of the Prophet rather than argued from first principles.

The Friday Congregation and Its Variants

On Fridays the Dhuhr prayer is displaced for those who attend the mosque by the Jumu'ah, the congregational Friday prayer, which the Qur'an commands the community to hasten toward when the call is given. Jumu'ah is two rak'ah rather than four, prayed aloud, and preceded by a sermon in two parts; attendance is an obligation on adult men in most Sunni reckonings, with women, travellers and the sick excused though not excluded. Where it cannot be held, the ordinary four-rak'ah Dhuhr is prayed in its place.

Dhuhr is also the prayer around which the permitted combining of prayers is discussed. Twelver Shia practice regularly joins Dhuhr and the following Asr into a single sitting, and Sunni law allows the two to be combined for travellers and in hardship, so that the midday and afternoon obligations, though distinct, are the pair most often prayed together.

Classical jurists disputed the minimum congregation Jumu'ah requires to be valid: the Shafii school historically required forty free adult male residents present, a threshold that could leave small or traveling communities unable to hold the prayer at all, while the Hanafi school set a far lower bar, requiring only the ruler's permission and a small quorum beyond the imam, a difference that shaped how readily the rite could be established in newly settled or minority communities. The obligation itself is grounded in the Quran's own naming of the day, Surah al-Jumu'ah (62:9-11), which commands believers to hasten to the remembrance of God and leave off trade when the call is sounded, a text read as making Friday, rather than the Jewish Saturday or Christian Sunday, the distinctive day of congregational assembly in Islam.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Islam, Religions
Source The Qur'an
Shia (Twelver), Denominations

Twelver jurisprudence holds that Dhuhr and Asr share a single extended window and may be prayed consecutively without excuse, where the Sunni schools permit combining only for travel, illness or, in some, rain.

Source Al-Hidaya fi Sharh Bidayat al-MubtadiBurhan al-Din al-Marghinani

Element Of

Hanafi School, Schools of Religious Law
Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz
Hanbali School, Schools of Religious Law
Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz
Maliki School, Schools of Religious Law
Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz
Shafii School, Schools of Religious Law
Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz

Held Differently

Jafari School, Schools of Religious Law

Twelver law permits the noon and afternoon prayers to be joined at one sitting, so the five daily prayers are commonly performed at three times of day.

Source Prayer in Islamic Thought and PracticeMarion Holmes Katz
Sources
1. Prayer in Islamic Thought and Practice
Marion Holmes Katz, Cambridge University Press, 2013View the Source
2. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition
P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W. P. Heinrichs (eds.), Brill, 2005View the Source
3. An Introduction to Islamic Law
Wael B. Hallaq, Cambridge University Press, 2009View the Source
4. Al-Hidaya fi Sharh Bidayat al-Mubtadi
Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, 1197Book of prayer, on the times: the Hanafi doubling of the shadow
The Qur'an
62:9-10View the Source
Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
Sharai al-Islam fi Masail al-Halal wal-Haram
Najm al-Din al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli, 1277Book of prayer, on the shared window of the noon and afternoon prayers
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