Muneebeena ilayhi wattaqoohu waaqeemoo assalata wala takoonoo mina almushrikeen (surah Rum: 31)

Tafseer Tafheem-ul-Quran by Syed Abu-al-A'la Maududi

(30:31) (Adhere to the True Faith and) turn to Him, *48 and hold Him in awe, *49 and establish Prayer, *50 and do not be of those who associate others with Allah in His Divinity,

Muneebeena ilaihi wattaqoohu wa aqeemus Salaata wa laa takoonoo minal mushrikeen

*48) That is, "Whoever has adopted an attitude of independence and freedom and turned away from his we Lord, and whoever has adopted service of another than Allah and proved to be disloyal to his real and we Lord, should desist from this, and return to the service of the One God. Whose real servant he is by birth."
*49) That is, "You should have the fear that if in spite of being a servant of Allah by birth, you adopted the way of living independently of Him, or served another beside Him, you will have to suffer a severe punishment for rebellion and ingratitude. Therefore, you should avoid every such way of life which earns you the wrath of God."
*50) Both turning to AIlah and having fear of His wrath are the acts of the heart. This state of the heart, for its manifestation and stability, inevitably needs a physical act, which thay make it known to others in society that so-and-so has really returned to the service of One Allah alone, and which, at the same time, may go on nourishing and developing the state of piety and devotion in one's own self al :o by means of practical experience and discipline. That i why immediately after giving the Command for a mental change Allah has given the Command for this physical act, i,e. establishment of the Salat. As long as an idea is only an idea in the mind of man, it can neither be stable nor enduring. It may fade away or even change. But when he starts practising it, the idea takes root in him and goes on increasing in stability and strength with more and more practice; so much so that when it has become a belief it can neither change nor fade away easily. Considered from this viewpoint, no act can be more effective than the offering of the Prayer regularly five times a day for strengthening piety and fear of God in oneself. The other act, whatever it be, is carried out at intervals, or in different forms on different occasions, but the Prayer is an act, which is performed every few hours in one and the same specific form permanently, in which man has to rehearse over and over again the whole lesson taught him by the Qur'an about Islam, so that he dces not forget it. Furthermore, both the believers and the disbelievers have to know who among the people has given up the way of rebellion and adopted the way of obedience to the Lord. The believers have to know this so that they can form into a community and society and can cooperate with one another in the way of Allah; then as soon as the relationship of any one of them starts showing signs of laxity with respect to the Faith and Islam, this should become known to all of them at once. The disbelievers have to know this so that the dorment nature in them wakens up when they see the people from their own kith and kin turning humbly to their real God over and over again, and till their nature wakes up they continue to be awe-stricken when they see the practical enthusiasm of the obedient servants of God. For these two objectives also the establishment of the Prayer is the most effective means.
Here, it should be noted that the Command for the establishment of the Prayer was given at Makkah at a time when a handful of the Muslims were being severely persecuted by the disbelieving Quraish, and went on being persecuted for another nine years after this. At that time there was 'no sign of the lslamic government yet in sight. If the offering of the Prayer was meaningless without the Islamic government, as some ignorant people think, or if the establishment of the Salat did not mean the offering of the Prayer at all but the establishment of Nizami-Rububiyat (order of Providence), as the deniers of Hadith claim, the Qur'anic injunction at that stage would have been meaningless. The question is: How did the Holy Prophet and the Muslims carry out this Command for nine years after it had been enjoined ?