And just as the prayer-performer turning his physical form toward a direction other than the one legislated for him invalidates his prayer, so too the esoteric prayer—its ruling is invalidated by the soul’s turning toward a path other than that of the Intellect; because every outward legislated act corresponds to an esoteric meaning, as we have previously mentioned.

"The sixth indication" regarding the esoteric meaning of the legislated prayer timings and the number of its units (raka‘āt): Know, my brother—may God steadfastly maintain you upon the knowledge He has bestowed upon you and aid you with an increase of His bounty—that the obligatory prayer in its entirety is indicative of the stations of the Intellect (al-‘Aql) in its manifestations. It is set in correspondence to its five persons (ashkhāṣihi al-khamsa). Its seventeen raka‘āt are indicative of the seventeen composite letters that point to its persons.

They only amount to seventeen letters when you omit two letters from the name of the third "Ḥā’"—this is due to the manifestation of his name, the concealment of his person, and the lack of variation in the rulings of the obligatory prayer, the iqāma, the turning, the magnification (takbīr), the recitation, the bowing (rukū‘), the prostration (sujūd), the testimony (tashahhud),