The Arabic word for prayer is ṣalāt, which originally means praying or the making of a supplication, and was employed in this sense before Islām. In the Holy Qur’ān, the word is used both in the technical sense of Divine service as established by Islām, and in a general sense. In the latter, it means simply praying or making a supplication.31 In the technical sense it is almost always used with one of the derivatives of the word iqāmah. Aqāmah means he kept a thing or an affair in a right state (LL.). Hence the iqāma of ṣalāh would mean the keeping of the prayer in a right state, which includes both the proper observance of the outward form and maintaining its true spirit. The purification before prayer, the mosque, the fixing of times and finally the settling of the form, are all parts of the outward organization, without which the spirit could not have been kept alive. To keep alive the spirit, an outward form is essential, for the spirit cannot live without a body. This is as true of institutions as of life. To maintain the spirit of law and order is the object of every good government, yet this spirit cannot be maintained without an external form. If therefore the object of religion is to enable man to seek and maintain a relationship with the Divine Spirit, that object cannot be attained without a form. In fact, as already stated, the great end in view, viz., to bring about the unity of the human race through Divine service, could not have been attained without a regularity in form and without a uniformity prevailing throughout the whole of the Muslim world. Hence a form has been fixed for the institution of the Islamic prayer, the individual having, in addition, liberty to pray to God in accordance with the desire of his own soul, when and where and as he likes. Like the times of prayer, the form was revealed to the Holy Prophet by the Holy Spirit or Gabriel.
The outward form is not, however, the end; it is only a help, a means to gain the end which is the maintaining of a true relationship
31 As in the verse: “Take alms out of their property — thou wouldst cleanse them and purify them thereby — and pray for them; surely thy prayer (ṣalāh) is a relief to them” (9:103).