Use of the Lexeme Ṣalāt in the Quran: Rhetorical and Emotive Components in the Context of Religious Identity

Abstract

Ritual prayer (ṣalāt) plays an important role in Islamic ritual practice, as well as in the construction of Islamic identity. The article discusses various narrative contexts in which the lexeme ṣalāt occurs in the Quranic text. Special attention is paid to the emotive and rhetorical component. The most typical contexts are: (1) the relation of this term to stories about the prophets of the past; (2) the obligatory of its performance for the ‘People of the Book’; (3) prayer as a basis for considering someone a believer; (4) condemnation of ostentatious prayer; (5) its apotropaic properties. Thus, ritual prayer is one of the most important criteria that distinguishes a believer from an unbeliever: the obligation to pray is assigned to every person who believes in God. At the same time, Jews and Christians are criticized for neglecting this duty. The Quranic fragments, calling for the prayer, contain formulas, regardless of whether they are put into the mouth of any of the prophets of the past or Muhammad himself. Prayer, despite being a difficult duty, is able to protect a believer from the intrigues of supernatural beings. Thus, ritual prayer, already in the earliest Muslim community, was an important tool for establishing religious identity and evidence of faith in God. The very concept of ritual prayer in the Quranic text, regardless of its chronology and the evolution of this lexeme as a religious term, is one of the most important criteria of faith, a distinctive sign of belonging to a community of believers.