Sujud
Sujud, or sajdah, also known as sijda, sejda or shejda, in Islam is the act of low bowing or prostration to God facing the qiblah. It is usually done in standardized prayers. The position involves kneeling and bowing till one touches the ground with seven bones : the forehead and nose, two hands, two knees and two sets of toes. In accordance with the Sunnah of Muhammad, one's elbows should be far from one's body, unless it causes discomfort to other worshippers, but not resting on the ground. Some scholars hold the position that this applies only to men, and that women are encouraged to tuck their elbows in out of modesty.
Overview
Sujud is one of the main pillars of daily prayer in Islam. A single act of sujud is called a sajdah. Muslims perform sujud several times during each prayer, depending on the number of raka'at of prayer: two sajadat are performed every raka'ah, and prayers vary in obligatory length between two and four raka'at. A raka'ah is a unit of set actions that have to be performed in a prayer. The shortest fard Muslim prayer is that of fajr, performed immediately before sunrise and the shortest ever possible number of raka'ahs is in the witr prayer, which is considered Sunnah in the Maaliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali Madhabs and Wajib in the Hanafi madhab, with one needing an odd number of Rakats to complete the prayer, with one being valid in all madhabs but the Hanafi Madhab. The raka'ah can be described as follows:- Standing and saying Allahu akbar, reciting surah al-Fatiha, and reciting a passage of the Quran such as sura al-Ikhlas.
- Performing ruku' without bending the knees and with hands resting on the knees, while reciting additional phrases to glorify Allah.
- Standing up from bowing, and reciting further.
- Going in prostration once, while reciting additional specific phrases to glorify Allah.
- Lifting the face up from prostration but kneeling or sitting on the ground.
- Performing a second prostration.
- Rising for the second, third, or fourth raka'ah. In the last raka'ah, one remains sitting and recites the tashahhud, and then performs the taslim by turning the head to the right and saying, as-salamu alaikum wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatuh, and then turning the head to the left and repeating the blessing to conclude the prayer.
While in sujud, the use of a turbah, on which a person places their forehead, is compulsory in most Shi'a schools of Islam.
Other types of sujud
Sajdah of recitation / Tilawah
During recitation of the Qur'an, including individual and congregation prayers, there are fifteen places where Muslims believe, when Muhammad recited a certain verse, he prostrated to God.The verses are:
In most copies of the Qur'an these are indicated by the symbol ۩, with an over-line on the word/s that invoked the prostration. Muslims must prostrate once in order to follow the Sunnah of Muhammad and recite any one or more of the following along with Takbeer before and after the sujud,