The Afternoon Prayer, and the Middle Prayer

Asr is the third of the five obligatory salah, prayed in the later afternoon between the lengthening of shadows and the setting of the sun. Its obligatory core is four rak'ah, recited silently. Among the five it carries a particular urgency in the sources: a widely transmitted saying warns that whoever misses the afternoon prayer is as one who has lost their family and property, and another that neglecting it renders one's deeds void. This severity has made faithfulness to Asr, prayed as the day's work presses toward its end and attention flags, a recognised test of discipline.

Many scholars identify Asr with the salat al-wusta, the middle prayer that the Qur'an singles out for special guarding in the command to maintain the prayers. The identification is not unanimous, others have argued for the dawn or the sunset prayer, but the afternoon reading is the majority view and lends Asr an added standing in the daily round.