and clarification. Similarly, when prayer was prescribed, recitation while standing was prescribed within it, followed by bowing and prostration.

The first words Allah revealed of the Quran were:

“Read in the name of your Lord who created.”

He thus opened the surah with the command to recite and concluded it with the command to prostrate, saying:

“Prostrate and draw near.”

His words, Most High,

“Only those believe in Our verses who, when reminded of them, fall down in prostration and glorify their Lord with praise,”

indicate that being reminded of them—as through their recitation in prayer—makes prostration and glorification obligatory. Whoever does not fall down in prostration and glorify his Lord with praise when reminded of them is not a believer. This includes verses that do not prescribe prostration, which constitute the great majority of the Quran’s verses. The Quran contains more than six thousand verses, whereas the verses of prostration number only a little over ten.

His words, “when reminded of them,” encompass all the verses. Thus, being reminded of these verses—all of them—makes glorification and prostration obligatory. This is among the evidence cited for the obligation of glorification and prostration. The general body of the Sharia’s evidence from the Quran and Sunnah likewise indicates this: glorifying Allah in some form is obligatory. Whoever does not glorify Allah during prostration has disobeyed Allah and His Messenger. If he uses any prescribed form of glorification, that suffices.

The jurists have three views on this issue. One view holds that no remembrance is obligatory at all.