Intention, and facing the qibla

Niyyah — intention

Islam treats intention as the heart of every action. The single most famous hadith in Islam is about this.

“Actions are judged by intentions, and every person will have what they intended.”

— Sahih al-Bukhari 1, Sahih Muslim 1907

For salah, your niyyah is a mental commitment. Before the opening takbir, you hold in your heart what prayer you are about to perform. You do not need to say it out loud. You do not need to say it in Arabic. You do not need any script. Muslims of every school agree: the niyyah is in the heart.

For example, before you pray Dhuhr, you simply think: I am about to pray four rakahs of Dhuhr for the sake of Allah. Then you begin.

Facing the qibla

Muslims pray facing the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure in the middle of the Grand Mosque in Makkah. The direction to face is called the qibla. From anywhere on earth, there is one qibla bearing.

فَوَلِّ وَجْهَكَ شَطْرَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ ۚ وَحَيْثُ مَا كُنتُمْ فَوَلُّوا وُجُوهَكُمْ شَطْرَهُ

Turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque. Wherever you are, turn your faces toward it.

— Quran 2:144

Barakah has a live qibla compass at barakah.life/qibla that shows the exact direction from your location. So does almost every Muslim app, and most phone compass apps have a qibla feature. If all else fails, you can ask a Muslim nearby to tell you the general direction in your city.

What if you get it slightly wrong

Scholars agree that small deviations (a few degrees off) do not invalidate the prayer. If you were doing your best and later learn you were off, the prayer counts. Prayer on an airplane or in a car where you cannot face qibla is allowed for the prayer you cannot miss, as long as you face the direction of travel or the best you can manage.