that you worship Him alone and never associate anything with Him; that you all hold fast together to the rope of Allah and do not become divided; and that you offer sincere counsel to those whom Allah has placed over your affairs.” Rendering the religion purely for Allah is the very foundation of worship.

Our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, forbade every form of shirk—its subtle and its obvious, its minor and its major. Indeed, it is mass-transmitted from him that he prohibited prayer at the time of sunrise and at the time of sunset, expressing this in varied wording. At times he would say, “Do not time your prayer to coincide with the rising or the setting of the sun.” On other occasions he forbade praying after dawn has broken until the sun has risen, and after the afternoon prayer until the sun has set. At still other times he explained that when the sun rises, it rises between the two horns of Satan, and at that moment the unbelievers prostrate to it; so he forbade prayer then because it resembles the practice of the polytheists, who prostrate to the sun at that hour, and because Satan accompanies the sun at that time.