The obligatory prayer is the only prayer a Bahá'í must say, and there are three of them from which one is chosen each day: a short prayer of a single paragraph said once between noon and sunset; a medium prayer said three times daily, in the morning, at midday and in the evening, with specified ablutions and gestures; and a long prayer said once in twenty-four hours with a sequence of prescribed movements including bowing, kneeling and standing with raised hands. The choice is entirely free, is made afresh each day, and is nobody else's business — no institution asks, and asking would be regarded as improper. Ablutions of the hands and face precede it, and the worshipper faces the Qiblih, the Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí near Akká. Crucially, it is never said in congregation; the only Bahá'í prayer recited communally is the Prayer for the Dead. For a religion with such strong communal institutions, the privacy of its one obligatory devotional act is a deliberate and striking design choice.