, and it is righteousness, obedience, good deeds, goodness, and right conduct. It is the path of spiritual wayfarers and the way of seekers and worshippers. It is followed by everyone whom Allah wills to guide and who takes the path of asceticism and worship, and what is called poverty, Sufism, and the like.

Undoubtedly, this includes the prescribed prayers, both obligatory and recommended. It includes the prescribed night prayer, reciting the Quran in the prescribed manner, and the prescribed remembrances and supplications. Some of these are assigned particular times, such as the beginning and end of the day; others are connected with particular occasions, such as the prayer upon entering a mosque, the prostration of recitation, the eclipse prayer, and the prayer for guidance in making a choice, together with the prescribed remembrances and supplications transmitted for these occasions. This encompasses many things, whose various forms would take a long time to describe.

It likewise includes prescribed fasting, such as fasting half the time, a third, two thirds, or a tenth—the last being fasting three days each month. It includes prescribed travel, such as travelling to Mecca and to the other two mosques. It includes jihad in its various forms; most Prophetic hadiths concern prayer and jihad. It also includes reciting the Quran in the prescribed manner.

The foundations of “religious acts of worship” are prayer, fasting, and recitation, as mentioned in the hadith of Abdullāh ibn Amr ibn al-Ās in the two Sahīh collections. The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, came to him and said:

“Have I not been told that you said, ‘I will certainly fast