What time is forbidden to pray?

Are there forbidden hours to praying?  And, why? That’s what we will find out in this article. During the day there are five hours that you are not allowed to pray in through which there are three periods during which you can’t offer both obligatory and supererogatory prayers. ,What time is forbidden to pray ?

What times are you not allowed to pray?

Those three forbidden periods are as following:

1) At the time of sunrise.

2) At the time of Zawal (when the sun is at its absolute zenith or midday), and

3) At the time of sunset.

However, what if I didn’t pray the Asr yet and it’s the time of sunset, can’t I pray Asr? In this case you are allowed to pray Asr, what’s more important is that you don’t let a prayer go by without praying it.

Beside those three periods there are other two hours here it is forbidden to offer supererogatory prayers in or as it is said “Makrooh”.

However, it is allowed to pray any obligatory prayers that are due on you because you couldn’t pray it on time.

These two hours are:

•         From offering of Fajr Salah till sunrise.
•         And from the offering of ’Asr Salah till sunset.

When can you not pray Asr?

It’s forbidden to pray at the time of sunset; however, if you couldn’t pray Asr at time then you can pray it at the time of sunset.  

To sum this out, what times are you not allowed to pray?

•         At the time of sunrise.
•         the time of Zawal (when the sun is at its absolute zenith or midday).
•         At the time of sunset.
•         From offering of Fajr Salah till sunrise.
•         And from the offering of ’Asr Salah till sunset.

When can you not pray Fajr? And, why are there forbidden prayer times in Islam?

Amr Salmi says that he asked Prophet Muhammad, “O Messenger of Allah! Tell me something that Allah has informed you about and I am unaware of that. Tell me something especially in relation to Salah”.

Prophet Muhammad said, “After offering the Morning Prayer, refrain from offering any other prayer till the time the sun rises properly because the sun comes out from between the two horns of Satan and at that very moment non-believers who worship sun prostrate before it. You can pray only after the sun has risen a bit from the ground because each and every Salah is presented in Allah’s court. However, do not offer Salah when the spear loses its shadow (at midday) because this is the time when Hellfire is fed with fuel.

And, after midday, as the shadow gets bigger and bigger, you can once again offer Salah because it is presented before Allah. When you have performed the ’Asr Salah then you should once again refrain from offering any other Salah until sunset because the sun sets between the two horns of Satan and at that very moment non-believers who worship sun prostrate before it” (Muslim).

Also, Prophet Muhammad said, “After the morning prayer there is no prayer to be offered till the time the sun has risen a little above the ground and after offering ’Asr prayer it is not appropriate to offer any other prayer till sunset” (Bukhari).

How long after sunrise can I pray Fajr? And what about the other prayers?

So, how long after sunrise can I pray fajr? You can pray Fajr until the time of sunrise (until Fajr prayer ends). Once the praying time of Fajr is over you should wait 15 minutes before you pray. That’s what our prophet instructed us to do.

Why is it forbidden to pray at sunrise? Because the sun comes out from between the two horns of Satan and at that very moment non-believers who worship the sun prostrate before it.

At the zawaal time (when the sun starts going down) it takes a few minutes. And also, our prophet instructed that we shouldn’t offer any prayers. We then can pray before the afternoon prayer starts by ten minutes.

Although praying at sunset is not allowed, however if you didn’t pray Asr and it is the time of sunset then you can pray Asr. But you need to know that it’s not right to pray Asr at that time, and you shouldn’t delay salah al Asr to that time.