The five daily prayers were obligated upon the Prophet (ﷺ) on the night of al-Isra'' wal-Mi''raj when he was raised above the seven heavens — fifty originally, then reduced to five with the reward of fifty ([al-Bukhari 349](/hadith/bukhari/349), Muslim 162). This singular manner of obligation — directly from Allah, without the intermediation of Jibril — proclaims the immense rank of the prayer in the religion. The fivefold spacing across the day is a divine wisdom: the believer never goes more than a few hours without standing before his Lord, so the heart does not heedlessly drift into the affairs of the world. Allah likened the believer who maintains them to a person who bathes in a flowing river five times a day — what filth would remain on him? ([al-Bukhari 528](/hadith/bukhari/528)). They are also a constant external testimony that distinguishes the believer from others, for "between a man and shirk and disbelief is the abandonment of prayer." (Muslim 82).