The Fallacy of the Five Prayers & the True Quranic Prayer

Of the claims used most commonly and ignorantly to undermine the religion of the Quran is that prayer is absent from the Book in terms of the method, times and even the number of prayers. This is because they do not search in the Quran except to find what proves their heritage, so God only increases them in misguidance. If they searched for the truth in the Quran without anything besides it from what they take as religion, they would find it detailed and precise, just as God promised, and God upholds his promises. And if they do find the truth, even after comprehending and reasoning it, they would turn their backs on it in defense of what they found their forefathers doing.

The Method of Prayer

Everything related to the correct Abrahamic prayer is detailed in the Quran, in contrast to the claim of the fabricators who made the prayer an exercise with identical and repetitive cycles of movement, murmuring in each cycle of them strict sentences that remove any form of thoughtfulness or individuality from the worshiper in his contact with the Creator. Their unnecessarily detailed prayers that they imposed on Muslims are innovations, the method of prayer that God commanded us is summarized in two successive verses.

Take due care of the prayers, and the proper (way of) prayer, and stand up for God devotedly. If you are wary (of missing it) then (pray while) walking or riding, and when you feel secure, mention God as He has taught you what you did not know.

[2:238-239]

The Proper Prayer (al-salatu al-wusta)

The first instruction is take due care of the the proper (Wusta) prayer, and the word Wusta doesn’t mean “middle” in Quranic Arabic and it is not a metaphor nor a name for a specific prayer, it is a general adjective for the method of prayer and does not refer to the "Asr/Afternoon prayer" as they claim. God has included the preservation of all prayers in "Take due care of the prayers" with no specifications, and when God mentions a specific prayer, he mentions it in its name, such as Fajr prayer or prayer Isha. As for the “Asr'' prayer, it is never mentioned in the Quran, and we can’t interpret Wusta as an a numerical or a quantitative adjective if it is never used in the Quran to denote a numerical thing but is used as a qualitative adjective. For example, verse 2:143 says “And thus we have made you a proper (wasatan) nation so that you become witnesses over the people, and the messenger a witness over you”. The same adjective is used here, and it can’t possibly be referring to a ‘middle’ nation, but it commends the awareness of the nation and its ability to distinguish with what it has received of knowledge so that they can be proper witnesses for those around them who did not follow the Prophet. Likewise, in 68:28 “The most proper (awsatu-hum) among them said: did I not tell you to exalt [God]?”. The adjective commends the person over those around him, surely not for being average or in the middle, but for being the best among them.

So, the proper (wusta) prayer means the correct prayer, and the correct way of prayer follows in the last sentence of the verse as “and stand up for God, devotedly”. God did not ask us for anything in prayer except to stand up, and even that isn’t necessary if it isn’t plausible during prayer time, which is why the verse after it says “If you are wary (of missing it) then (pray while) walking or riding, and when you feel secure, mention God as He has taught you what you did not know.” This is the Abrahamic prayer that God taught us, a conscious, spiritual prayer in which we do not mention anyone except Him, not a gestural full body exercise with falsified talismans that God did never authoried, neither to the Messenger nor the Muslim prophets who preceded the Quran.

As for bowing and prostration, they are independent acts of worship that have nothing to do with the standing obligatory prayer, and they are never mentioned as part of it. Rather, the only verse mentioned in the Quran that combined prayer and prostrating, demonstrates that it may come after the end of the prayer and not during it, as God says in verse 4:102 - “And If you are in their midst, and stood for them the prayer, a party from them should stand with you, and should take their arms, then if they prostrate, they should be (doing so) from behind you (*plural), and another party that has not yet prayed should come and pray with you, and they should take their precautions and their arms”. So, anyone who intends to prostrate is instructed to go behind the congregation (*since ‘you’ is plural in the verse) and thus separate from the prophet, which means it is not part of the prayer he was leading.

Prayer is the continuous direct connection with God as part of His creation, just like we keep up our social relationships and responsibilities and remember our parents and the people we care about, prayer is our way to remember God and express our faith in Him, acknowledge His blessings and give Him thanks. The purpose of prayer has always been and is only about remembering God, this is what He taught Moses in verse 20:14; "Verily, I am God; there's no god but Me, so worship Me, and establish the prayer to remember Me."

Prayer times

We do not find in the Quran any of the five daily prayers taken from non-divine sources claimed by the misguided clerics, and even the Fajr and Isha prayers mentioned by name in the Quran have nothing to do with the times known among Muslims today. There are two clear verses in Quran about prayer times ignored by Muslims, the first says:

Stand the prayer at both edges of the day and in the close parts of the night. Surely, good deeds erase bad deeds. That is a reminder for the mindful.

(11:114)

By the first look, it may seem that the verse specifies three times for prayer, but that’s a misconception, because then “in the close parts of the night” would not be applicable on its own; the phrase specifies a time frame that has to be close or near to something that is in contact with some parts of the night. Hence, it becomes clear when we look at “both edges of the day”, that “the close parts of the night” refer to the night times in touch with these two edges - a period we call twilight. Now that we know the upper bounds of daily prayer time are “both edges of the day”, namely sunrise and sunset, what remains is the respective night bound of each period, the times where “the close parts of the night” come to an end, which is where the second verse comes in:

Stand the prayer for the declining of the sun to the dusk of the night, and the recitation of the dawn; the recitation of the dawn is surely witnessed. (17:78)

The first clear sentence about a time period in the verse is “for the declining of the sun to the dusk of the night”, which looks like it refers to the twilight after sunset, but why did God use “declining of the sun” and not “sunset”? Because sunset is a specific time event that lasts for a moment, not a period of time, but the “declining” of the sun is a whole movement that lasts until dusk - the length of the evening twilight. So, in order for us to not confuse sunset for a separate prayer God used “declining of the sun” instead of “sunset”, but we mindlessly did that anyway with the innovated “Maghrib” (sunset) prayer. This period that begins at sunset or the second edge of the day and lasts during the declining of the sun until dusk lasts about half an hour, which is the available period for performing the correct Isha prayer, but the Isha prayer that we perform today comes more than an hour after the dusk ends. In that way God leads those associate things with Him astray in everything.

The verse continues and instructs us to perform a second prayer in His saying: “and the recitation of the dawn; the recitation of the dawn is surely witnessed.” The dawn (al-fajr) is the name of the close parts of the night that directly precede the first edge of the day or sunrise, and God has signified the importance of recitation (Quran) at that time, which also means even the recitation of the Quran isn’t mandatory for the Abrahamic prayer to be correct. The beginning of the dawn time is also clarified in a different verse (2:187) where God says: “eat and drink until the white thread becomes apparent from the black thread from the dawn, then complete the fast until the night”. The white thread is the first light that begins with the morning twilight; the first appearance of sunlight in the sky, which is the beginning of dawn. This is significant because what is known today among Muslims as Fajr takes place about an hour before any light starts to appear, which means that they establish their prayer too early, and hence begin their fast too early. Moreover, instead of completing their fast “until the night” like the verse says, they break it at sunset instead of waiting for the night’s completion at “the dusk of the night”; which is the end time for the Isha prayer. Interestingly, this is also the time when Jews perform their evening prayer.

The period for the dawn (Fajr) prayer lasts from the appearance of the white thread or first light until the sun reaches the horizon, which is the first edge of the day. or the so-called rising of the sun. The period for the evening (Isha) prayer lasts from the second edge of the day or sunset until the night settles in at dusk. Both of these periods last about thirty minutes each, during which we can establish each of the two prayers. These daily periods are natural phenomena observed with the naked eye without the need for the modern astronomical tools used by today’s scholars, tools that were simply not feasible and did not exist in the era of the Prophet.

Where did the five prayers come from?

The followers of the Hadithist religion claim that their innovated prayers were ordered to the Messenger during the erroneous journey of Isra and Mi'raj, and if you asked them how the Muslims prayed before that, they say two prayers, one at sunrise and another at sunset, and this is from their own heritage and not an inference from the Qur’an, but they confirm what is in it unknowingly. The summary of this ludicrous "Qudsi" hadith is that Gabriel ascended the Messenger to the seventh heaven, and there, God surprised him with an uncanny request; fifty daily prayers, and this was after the Qur’an had just been revealed to him with two prayers. The Messenger pleaded until he gradually negotiated five daily prayers. Is it possible that God would change His commandments, and does this sudden change correspond to the attributes of the Almighty?

A saying does not change with Me, nor do I do injustice to the servants.

[Surah Qaf 50:29]

And the Word of your Lord has been fulfilled with truth and Justice. None can change His words. And He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.

[Surah Al-An'am 6: 115]

And recite what has been revealed to you from the Book of your Lord; None can change His words, and you will find no refuge without Him.

[Surah Al-Kahf 18:27]

This is a clear affirmation that the words of God do not switch, what He said in the Quran is unchangeable, and His Book is the perfection of His Word from which His messenger was ordered to recite to people, without any other source. The Messenger of God would not say things about God on his own nor would he devise a religion from outside the Book as the ignorants claim. These verses are incompatible with what they slander about God and His Messenger, they would have to outright deny them to justify their “Hadiths”.

Woe to the deniers on that day, in what Hadith (discourse) after it (the Quran) do they believe?

[77:49-50]

The Hadithist prayer in the Quran

It is not news to the the followers of the Quran that God has written the Book foretelling about the Muslim community would arrive at in the current age. Hence, it would not be surprising to find that God spoke about those who are stringent about this falsified prayer while being apparently pretentious and hypocritical in their ways, thinking that their prayers will save them.

So, Woe to people who pray; those who are heedless of their (correct) prayer, those who (only want to) show off, and hinder (even) little (gestures of) support.

[107:4-7]

These verses are a detailed description of today’s Islamic clergymen, who flaunt their false prayers while being heedless of the truth, and disable the smallest acts of kindness while preaching intolerance and hostility in the name of religion.

Those who have been guided by God to the true religion should not be lenient in copying what hadithists do, especially the prayers in which they speak to the Messenger and remember nothing except how many repetitions they have left. If what hinders the people of the Quran is their lack of knowledge about the correct Abrahamic prayer, then perhaps what has been mentioned of the verses of God would remind them of the truth; that the book is detailed and contains an explanation of everything, even if we took a little more time to find it.

Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds.