a question about the "middle prayer"

[ilker]

Assalamu alaikum folks,

I've read Brother Joseph's article on daily prayers and "wusta prayer". Long time ago in an Islamic website there was a study in which the middle prayer was defined as "maghrib prayer". Because when you take the sunrise as the beginning of the day, the first daily prayer is "noon" prayer, not fajr. We pray fajr when the sky becomes bright enough "before" the sunrise. So we can say fajr prayer actually belongs to the ending/final edge of the "night time". When you take the "noon" prayer as the first (Surah Jumu'ah supports this with 62:9, the first prayer of the day !), "maghrib" becomes the middle prayer automatically. This makes sense to me because the period of time for "maghrib" is rather short and should be taken seriously and handled "carefully".

What do you think about this idea ?

[ilker]

No ideas ?

[Duster]

Shalom / peace....personally. ...I don't find this a strong argument.  I think it makes more sense to use the point when light starts to hit the sky as the starting point Fajr..(not sunrise) and ending point when light has completely vanished as the end point (Isha).

[relearning]

its very confusing and mind blowing to see that even a daily pray for us for muslims have such different views opinions and not a standart is set. What makes me buffeled is that Quran willingly give descripton of what jews wanted to eat counting onions, garlic, cucumber, lentile where it doesnt give exact prescribtion of timing of prays in a day. God ofcourse know in His timeless knowledge that people would disagree about it many would question quran's authorithy and feel lost at such intentionally not giving clear and open orders of timing daily pray. For example it would be so easy for millions of people considering many are uneducated to give simple a command O you believers Pray in the morning before sun then at noon and after noon beofore sun set then after sun set and before you go to sleep when stars are brightly visible. Then there will be no mixed thought or suspicions about the exact order of pray times. Why God avoid refrain giving such clear message which is easy for him also knowing the future generations dilemmas in the absent of such order? I dont know. After all how can we read the mind of God? So although God commands dont be like people who create sects in religion this lack of clear messages regarding every muslims's life is a source of secterianism among muslim society. Count how many groups exists because of lack of clear messages. Ofcourse now some people here say Quran is a clear quidance it included every details for a believer but its just you have to learn and master arabic you have to learn Christianity and Jewish Literature and History and Arabs Literature and History. Yes but who has time for that? Yet then you may say if you cant do it there are people like Joseph brother who devoted themself to Quran and they are like skillfull diver with each diving into the ocean of quran they collect gems of invaluable to muslim community. Yet there are many people like Joseph brother who devoted their life to Quran and they say different things as well. And you look jews and christs and then you see countless sects just because the text itself is open to different views. So its not like a physic or math book that what you read is same but you cant apply differently because rules work one way. After learning basic calculation you cant gather people around with wrong false interpreations of it like o people we are the group of 2+2=5 its the utmost truth i learnt from the math book. You would fail in such case.

Then its clear our source and not only that but any religious source including christians jews hindus etc. are open to different views different results. So it wont end untill the doomsday when the judgement will be done by God about whose account was right and whose were wrong.

[ilker]

well i'm not an expert of Quran. though we don't know the exact reason for those kind of "not clear enough" statements, i think they are meant to be this way. for example you say in your post:

"For example it would be so easy for millions of people considering many are uneducated to give simple a command O you believers Pray in the morning before sun then at noon and after noon beofore sun set then after sun set and before you go to sleep when stars are brightly visible. Then there will be no mixed thought or suspicions about the exact order of pray times."

As soon as i've read this, i thought about polar circles. there are people who can't see the sun for a quite long time in a year, or the opposite, they are under darkness for such a long time. if prayer times were mentioned like you said, they would be useless for those people up there. but i personally think those prayer times indicate specific portions of a day, so that everyone can understand them. for example isha prayer is for "the last part" of the day, before we go to sleep to rest, it's a night prayer (or "the last part of the day" prayer for people who don't experience dark nights), noon prayer is for the middle part of the day when we are all busy working, studying, in the middle of our daily actions and that can also be determined by the people who don't see the sun in winter. asr prayer is for the time we are now prepared for the "evening" part, we are close to the "sunset", we are getting ready to go home etc... and so on....

So all the people on Earth could determine these portions of the day in such a manner that is common and widely accepted. But again it's just my personel opinion. May Allah guide us to the right path if we are wrong.

Sorry for my English by the way, I apologize if i couldn't explain my thoughts clear enough.

[relearning]

no your english is ok better than mine it looks! Anyway what i said Quran could easily solve timing or the number of prays in a day by just making it easy for the believers a mass population most of them consists average lay persons like me. But As Quran claims its crystal clear it explains fully detailed and then we have had such situations that it comes to the point: Quran is not crystal clear of one hundred percent and did not explain everything fully. Quran is a holy book but it has a frame of time and space a historical context. Without this in mind we would face contradictions because in one side we will see that Quran claims it is fully explaining everything related religion and in the other side millions of people divided even just because of one word which might imply some dualities or which quran avoided to give clear instructions or explanations for both contemporary and future generations of believers or nonbelievers as well. As i said in my example have you seen any believer to argue what provisions did jews ask from god thorugh moses? because there is no space for commenting over a fully explained matter. But when it comes to matters such timings and number of daily prays, women's rights and garments and of beating them because of their ill-conduct, polygamy numbers and conditions, prisoners of war and rights of women among them, divorcing terms and conditions, age of marriage, women's testimony, inheritage, punishments regarding thiefs, apostates, waging war against disbelievers, freedom of religion etc. Now one may say these are all explained by my scholar or teacher or sect leader then there are others who explained it in the other way around. So there is a text which have space for different views and conclusions draw from it. So my idea is to put quran into context bound by time and historical facts. For example i was very much shocked confused when i heard omar second caliph when he didnt act according to ayat of 9:60 regarding giving zakat to the ones whose heart inclined to islam as he said it was when we were weak now that we are strong we dont need it. Or when he said he wont cut the hands of thiefs because either there was a famine or people were not supporting poor in the society enough. So in both cases context and benefit of society is considered by Omar. That means we dont have a fixed dogmas but we have flexibility in determining what rules we can implement which doesnt have to be word by word with quran but in harmony with its general guiding.

[Wakas]

peace ilker,

Re: "wusta"
Firstly, I recommend you read point 11 here.

Secondly, can you please clarify:

1) quote: We pray fajr when the sky becomes bright enough "before" the sunrise...
Are you implying fajr salat does not cross into daytime? i.e. it must be before any part of the sun rises above the horizon.

2) quote: So we can say fajr prayer actually belongs to the ending/final edge of the "night time".
How can you reconcile this with 11:114 of Quran which assigns salat to the edges of daytime, not "night time"?

3) quote: When you take the "noon" prayer as the first (Surah Jumu'ah supports this with 62:9, the first prayer of the day !)
Can you clarify how 62:9 supports this?

4) quote: the period of time for "maghrib" is rather short and should be taken seriously and handled "carefully".
What verses are you referring to for the underlined parts above?


Thanks.

[ilker]

Salam Wakas

Thank you for your recommendation. I came across this idea of "wusta prayer" in a website (not in English). I found it reasonable but i wanted to have your opinions on this too. I'm a learner here, I'm not saying "this is the ultimate truth". ALLAH knows best

1) If we take sunrise as the beginning of the day, then no it doesn't. We pray fajr before sunrise at the final edge of the night. Again this is an assumption as to when the day begins.

2)I think this is about the meaning of the word "zulafan". I thought the final edge of the night as a "zulfa" here.

According to 11:114 what can you say about "noon" prayer then ? When is the noon prayer besides asr and fajr, if you take "fajr" as one "edge" of the day /morning time ? (Unless you think there are 3 daily prayers...)

3)This is what i thought when i read the article on that website. "When the call is made on Friday (Jumu'ah)....leave off trading...." So the call is made when people are often busy trading / shopping...This can't be the time before "fajr". On the day of Jumu'ah we hear the call for "noon prayer" first, while we are usually engaged in many activities. So if we consider the noon prayer as the first prayer of "the day", "maghrib" becomes "wusta prayer" (if you take the word with its literal meaning of course)

4)I'm not referring to any verses. This is "my opinion" on the issue. We pray maghrib from the sunset to "ghasaq-al-layl" and this period of time can be really short (just like fajr) so it should be taken seriously.

Because of the reasons i mentioned in my 3rd and 4th answers, I thought "maghrib prayer" can be considered as "the middle prayer". Again these are my opinions and may ALLAH swt guide me (and of course all of us) if i'm / we're wrong.

[ZKAB90]

There is 5 prayers.

Here the proof through mathematical reasoning: http://realquran.net/quran-articles/6-religious-questions/2-is-the-number-of-salaat-prayers-5-or-3

[Wakas]

peace ilker,
 
Based on my research, the evidence for a middle/noon/daytime salat (e.g. "wusta") is poor. I assume you have read the link I gave previously - it also links to other info which clarify it further - they are also recommended reading.
 
Re: 1)
Quranically, daytime begins when the sun is first seen above the horizon, and ends when it is completely beneath horizon.
Here is a past discussion you may find helpful:
http://quransmessage.com/forum/index.php?topic=1152.0
 
Re: 2)
"zulufan" means near/proximal/close parts (plural), which may or may not be edges.
"tarafay" more accurately has the meaning of edge.
 
Re: 3)
62:9 is often cited as evidence of there being a timed-salat during the daytime (especially at noon) however what seems to be missed is that verse 24:58 clearly states noon-afternoon was commonly taken as a period of rest and/or being in private/indoors, not busy trading.
As a side note some take "yawm al jumu'a" to mean "day of Friday", but it could also mean "day of gathering/congregation". You may find this article interesting, it discusses the traditional Muslim development of the Friday prayer:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/37518569/CH-Becker-on-the-History-of-early-Muslim-Worship-and-Salat-Prayer
 
 
Re: 4)
Thanks for clarifying it was your opinion.

[ZKAB90]

Maybe the article I posted is bad or incorrect. So think about before follow it.