Fard of salah:
11 essentials in prayer

Prayer has 11 fard elements

• Fard means essential or obligatory, it’s the bare minimum and the core of the prayer;

• Omitting any of them even unintentionally makes the prayer invalid;

• They can be split into two groups: shurut (conditions) and arkan (integrals or pillars).

Five conditions (shurut)

The following five are the prerequisites or conditions of prayer.

• Entrance of Prayer Time

• Purity (Physical & Ritual)

• Covering the nakedness

• Being directed towards Ka’ba

• Intention

These five have to be already in place when the prayer begins.

Together, these five conditions and six integrals compose the 11 fard elements of prayer, which we must fulfil for the prayer to be valid. Therefore knowing how to fulfil them is a must for us. 

We have two articles exploring this topic in more detail, please give them a read:

1. Prayer conditions (shurut).

2. Prayer integrals (arkan).