Prayer | Time | Obligation | The Recommended Optional Prayers | |
No. of Rak^ahs | Before | After | ||
Fajr | Its time begins when the true dawn appears and remains until sunrise. | 2 | 2 | – |
Noon | Its time begins when the sun has declined westward from the middle of the sky. It ends when the ^Asr time starts. | 4 | 2 | 2 |
^Asr | Its time begins when the length of the shadow of an object becomes equal to the length of the object itself, in addition to the length of the shadow cast by that object when the sun was at its zenith (istiwa’). It remains until sunset. | 4 | 2 | – |
Maghrib | Its time begins after sunset and remains until the redness disappears in the western horizon. | 3 | – | 2 |
^Isha’ | Its time begins when the Maghrib time ends and remains until the true dawn appears. | 4 | – | 2 |
P.S. The true dawn starts as a very thin horizontal whiteness in the eastern horizon that increasingly broadens, until the sunrise.
When the whiteness of the true dawn first appears, the time of the ^Isha’ is over, and Subuh (also known as Fajr) has begun.