“distressed when evil touches him,
and withholding when good touches him,
except those who pray,
who are constant in their prayers.”

The early generations—the Companions and those who came after them—explained being constant in prayer as both observing its appointed times and sustaining its actions with attentive devotion. The verse encompasses both meanings, for He says:

“who are constant in their prayers.”

Someone who is constant in an action is someone who maintains it and performs it continually. When this concerns something performed at separate times, it means performing it every day, rather than doing it on one occasion and omitting it on another. If this is called constancy, then sustaining a single, continuous action has an even greater claim to be called constancy and to fall within the scope of the verse. This indicates that sustaining the actions of prayer is obligatory, because Allah, Mighty and Majestic, censures humanity in general, excepting those who maintain this quality. Whoever fails to sustain its actions is therefore censured by the Lawgiver, and the Lawgiver censures only the omission of an obligation or the commission of something forbidden.

Furthermore, He, Glorified and Exalted, says:

“except those who pray,
who are constant in their prayers.”

This indicates that someone who prays may or may not be constant in prayer, and that one who prays without being constant is blameworthy. This entails censure of anyone who fails to sustain its actions, whether within a continuous prayer or across separate prayers. If sustaining its actions is obligatory, that is precisely what composure in prayer consists of. For this indicates that remaining in bowing, prostration, and the other postures is obligatory. If even less than the lowering mentioned—which is like a crow’s pecking—were sufficient, that would not constitute constancy, nor would it be obligatory to remain in bowing