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In what way should I pray since I am a new Muslim and I am not good at performing salah nor can I recite any surahs from the Quran properly? And I don't know anyone who is Muslim that would be willing to help me and teach me.

My parents are not Muslim, they are Christian and they would be extremely angry with me if they found out I was practicing Islam. They think Islam is a bad religion and say that it is a “cult” They would never take me to a mosque. So at home I have to practice Islam secretly.

I can’t drive yet and I don’t know anyone who is Muslim since I live in the USA. What should I do with prayer?

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  • You should learn some Quranic verses and learn how to do salah properly, in the meantime, I suggest you go to your local mosque and pray in congregation and ask the imam about this. Jan 30, 2018 at 20:41
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    Seems relevant islam.stackexchange.com/questions/32644/… please consider elaborating your post if this doesn't answer your question to point at your exact issues.
    – Medi1Saif
    Jan 30, 2018 at 21:16
  • My parents are not Muslim, they are Christian and they would be extremely angry with me if they found out I was practicing Islam. They think Islam is a bad religion and say that it is a “cult” They would never take me to a mosque. So at home I have to practice Islam secretly. So what should I do with prayer?
    – Ryan
    Jan 30, 2018 at 21:20
  • 'They would never take me to a mosque'- can't you go yourself? How old are you? Jan 30, 2018 at 22:20
  • I am only 16 years old and I can’t drive on my own until I am 17
    – Ryan
    Jan 30, 2018 at 22:31

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I asked about this when I was learning to pray: Going from "never prayed in my life" to my first prayer?

Nowadays, learning to pray is usually a matter of following whatever YouTube video you find helpful. There's many videos on YouTube giving instructions on how to pray---pick one you like. When people told me to "learn from YouTube", it felt dismissive, but it's good advice: we can learn a lot more from YouTube videos (many of which are produced by imams; and which we can watch repeatedly) than from other Muslims.

As a convert, I printed out what I needed to recite, and placed it next to my prayer area. Praying five times per day, it doesn't take too long to memorize what's needed. For example, I printed out the tashahhud from the image here Is there a sect-neutral tashahhud?

Another warning: don't expect to get it right straight away; there's going to be beginner mistakes (early on, I didn't pray towards Mecca--oops!). We make incremental progress over time, and cumulatively we end up praying not perfectly, but good enough.


I found the site NewMuslims.com helpful for basic "new convert" knowledge. They also have instructions on "How to Pray for a Recent Convert".

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