“Maintain with care the prayers, and stand before Allah devoutly obedient.”

Maintain with care the obligatory prayers and in particular the middle i.e., ʿaṣr prayer and stand before Allah, devoutly obedient.

The command is to guard the prayers, and then one is singled out — “the middle prayer,” which the commentators most often identify as ‘asr, the prayer that falls in the busiest part of the afternoon. What follows in the next verse is the measure of how seriously the guarding is meant: if you are in fear, pray on foot or riding. The prayer bends to circumstance, but it is not dropped.