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(continued from SALAAT)
Fixation of five times Salat

"We have already mentioned that the Friday prayer in Medina used to be performed either at zuhr or asr according to the circumstances. These timings were reserved for Friday only. Nevertheless, the Prophet himself reported to have performed daily additional salat either at zuhr or asr. Sometimes he performed two addition salats at zuhr and asr. The reason behind it was unknown. What he practiced privately was a different, but what practices he exhorted were important, since he never wanted to create hardship for his ummah.

There are many examples of Prophet's religious practice, which he never recommended to the Muslims, whose few illustrations are given below:-

a) The Prophet fasted for two month in Ramzan and Shaban months. Besides, the first fortnight of the month he devoted usually for fasting. Two Mondays, one Thursday, and according to some reports Friday as well, were the fast days in every month. For the first ten days of Muharram and for six days from the 2nd of Shawal month to the 7th, he was always fasting.

b) Besides the obligatory prayers, he performed some 39 raka'ts - two in the morning, four in the forenoon, six in the afternoon, six early in the evening, two at sunset, six early in the night, and thirteen about midnight.

c) Sometimes, the Prophet recited Sura Marium in the morning salat. Sometimes he read 60 to 100 Koranic verses in the morning salat. He also recited some 30 Koranic verses during the afternoon prayer, and about 15 verses in late afternoon prayer.

In like manner, in addition to the three prescribed salats, the Prophet used to offer salat afternoon (zuhr) and late afternoon (asr) in Medina. But, he did not approve his religious practice for the Muslims.

It infers from the scrutiny of the traditions that some people in Medina offered three salats as well as the salats of zuhr and asr when they watched the Prophet to do so. It appears that the Prophet never prevented them. Before the time the average Muslims begin to perform five prayers, he put forward a middle way of the combination of the prayers. The Koranic ordinance of three times prayer was not abrogated; therefore, he did not like to put the ummah into hardship.

There are twenty-one narrations of sound hadith that pertain to the Prophet's joining together of the two sets of prayers, i.e., zuhr - asr & maghrib - isha to make three prayers in a day. Firstly, he emphasized upon the travellers. According to Bukhari (18:13-15), the two afternoon prayers, zuhr and asr may be combined when one is on a journey, and so may the two night prayers, maghrib and isha. He also permitted to those who were at homes (al-Muslim, 2:151). Later on, the Prophet is reported to have exhorted the combination of prayers voluntarily to all the Muslims. Ibn Abbas reports that the Prophet combined the zuhr and asr prayers, and maghrib and isha when there was neither journey nor fear. Being asked, why he did it, the reply was, "so that his followers may not fall into hardship." (al-Muslim, 6:5). It is also related that the Prophet prayed at zuhr and asr together, and the maghrib and isha together, without being a traveller or in fear (al-Muslim, 2:151). Thus, this practice became known as jam bain al-salatin (combination of two prayers). The wisdom behind it was to retain the original Koranic injunction of three prayers intact.

Between the period of Abu Bakr and Ali, the Muslims in Medina prayed for five times and other three times prayer on the basis of the combination of the salats. When the early Umayyad rulers broke their relation with Medina, the issue of daily prayers became unsettled, and it also influenced the other Muslim regions till the final ruling of the jurists, which has been explained briefly as under:-

"In Syria in olden times it was not generally known that there were only five obligatory salat, and in order to make certain of this fact it was necessary to find a Companion still alive who could be asked about it." (Abu Daud, 1:142 and Nisai, 1:42)

"In the time of Hajjaj bin Yusuf and the Umayyad caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz," write Ibn Nadim in his Kitab al-Fihrist (Leipzig, 1871, p. 91), "the people had no idea of the proper times for prayer and the most pious Muslims were unsure of the quite elementary rules."

The pious Muslims, however, endeavored to demand adherence to a fixed tradition in the name of the Prophet and, when they found that the government did not support them in efforts which seemed unimportant to the latter, they produced the following prophecy of the Prophet: "idha kanat alaykum umara yumituna al-salat" means, "There will come amirs after me who will kill the salat" (Tirmizi, 1:37).

Goldziher writes in Muslim Studies (London, 1971, 2:40) that,"The fact is, however, that during the whole of the Umayyad period, the populace, living under the influence of their rulers with little enthusiasm for religion, understood little of the laws and rules of religion. Medina was the home of such rules and it would have been vain to seek them in circles under Umayyad influence." After being frustrated from the Umayyad caliphs, the pious Muslims of Syria became eager from the new regime of the Abbasids. Adherence to the caliph was an integral element in Muslim belief. Thus, the Abbasid priest propagated a faked hadith that, "He who does not cling to the aminullah (the confident of God), by which the caliph is to be understood will not benefit by the five salats.

On this juncture, the tradition quoted by Ibn Hajar (4:238) will be important to find a missing chain. Accordingly, Abu Darda once came in Medina from Baghdad. He showed his ability to perform salat more than three prescribed times. The Prophet told him to add two more salat before noon and afternoon. Thus, he offered five times prayer and returned Baghdad as if a missionary, where he preached five times salat.

It implies that the Baghdad school gradually practiced five times prayer. The Umayyad rule in Islam was entirely secular with the exception of the episode of caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz and was little permeated by religious motives in its forms and aims. The Umayyads were little concerned about the religious life of the population. They paid little attention to religion either in their own conduct or in that of their subjects. Dinawari writes in Kitb al-Akhbar (Leiden, 1888, p. 249) that if a man was seen absorbed in devout prayer in a mosque, it was a pretty safe assumption that he was not a follower of the Umayyad dynasty but an Alid partisan.

Hajjaj bin Yusuf, the Umayyad governor in Iraq once rebuked Anas bin Malik like a criminal and threatened to grind him as millstones would grind and to make him a target for arrow. (Dinawari, p. 327). Caliph Yazid bin Abdul Malik contemptuously called Hasan al-Basari a Sheikh al-Jahil and threatened to kill him, vide History of Arabs (ed. De Goeje, Leiden, 1869, p. 66).

People travelled to Medina, the place of origin of the hadiths, from where the religious stream flowed. On this juncture, the jealous Umayyad rulers called Medina as al-Khabitha (dirty one). The governor of Yazid I in Medina gave it the name of al-Natna (evil-smelling one), vide Muwatta, 4:61.

The Abbasid rule bore from the beginning the hallmark of a religious institution. The Abbasid's aim however was to make the recognition of their claims to rule into a religious affairs.

When Abul Abbas, the founder of the Abbasids asked the people in Basra to fulfil the duty of the fast-alms (zakat al-fitr), they took consul and sought to find Medinians who might guide them about this religious duty which was entirely unknown to them (Abu Daud, 1:162 and Nisai, 1:143). The same community in the first years of its existence had no inkling of how to perform salat, and Malik bin al-Huwayrith (d. 94/713) had to give them a practical demonstration in the mosque of the actions accompanying the liturgy (Nisai, 1:100).

The Abbasid interest in canonical studies increased in the same measure as their political influence was taken away by governors and usurpers. It was a time when the movement to establish the sunna as a science and as the standard of life, received official recognition.

Theologians now found the ground prepared to make accepted in practice the sunna, which in the Umayyad period was pushed into the background. In Iraq, for example, Shu'ba (d. 160/777) made the sunna prevail in public for the first time. In Marw and Khorasan, al-Nadir bin Shumayl (d. 204/820) introduced the sunna in public, and likewise Abdullah al-Darimi (d. 255/870) in Samarkand made the sunna public. Abu Sa'id al-Istakhri (d. 328/943) in Sijistan and Yazid bin Abi Habib (d.128/746) introduced sunna in Egypt for the first time.

Favored or at least not hampered by disregard, the Islamic studies of law developed freely, and the new stones laid by the repressed jurists of the first century could now be expanded by steady increase to form the edifice of Islamic science.

In sum, with the progress of the literature of the Muslim jurists during the early Abbasid period, the salat for five times was given a conclusive ruling in Islam. According to the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics (ed. James Hastings, London, 1956, 10:197), "In the first generation after Prophet's death it was a subject of discussion which of the daily salats must be regarded as obligatory, and there was also difference of opinion as to the exact times of a day at which the Prophet had usually performed his devotions. But gradually it was recognized in the whole Muslim world that the five salats were obligatory for every Muslim."

The Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam (Karachi, 1981, p. 493) comments, "To us, such traditions are an indication that the number of daily salats had not yet fixed at five in Muhammad's lifetime. In the canonical hadith the number of five is found in numerous traditions. We shall therefore have to place the origin of this theory before the end of the first century."

The average Sunnis professed Hanafism, and Abu Yusuf (d. 799), the famous pupil of Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767) was responsible to spread Hanafism in the Abbasid domain, and earned the title of sahib hadith wa sahib sunna. He was appointed Judge in Baghdad and later became the Chief Justice with the authority to appoint judges throughout the Abbasid kingdom. He thus had a free rope to propagate Hanafism.

With the emergence of the Abbasids in the 8th century, the science of jurisprudence flourished, for in that period the four Sunni schools (Hanafism, Shafi'ism, Malikism and Hanbalism) of law became widespread, traditions were collected, commentaries of the Koran were compiled. In particular, the works of Abu Hanifa and his disciple, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shayban (d. 804), the works of Shafa'i were brought out, wherein the five times prayer in a day had been given a final ruling.

The later jurists ignored the tradition of the combination and included zuhr and asr with the three daily salats, making a final ruling of five times prayer in a day.

It was the period of Imam Muhammad al-Bakir, who exhorted the practice of combination like the Prophet in order to retain the Koranic injunction and give relief to the followers. Al-Amili writes in "Wasa'il al-Shi'a" (Beirut, 1982, 3:4) that Imam Muhammad al-Bakir said, "When the sun begins to decline, the time for the zuhr and the asr begins, and when the sun sets, the time for the maghrib and isha begins."

Hence, the Shi'ites consider it permissible to run together the noon and afternoon and the evening and night prayers, so that the prayers are only offered on three separate occasions during the day. The Prophet had approved the practice of combination of prayers permissible and there is a support for this view in the Bukhari (1:146) and al-Muslim (1:264-5)"

Three times Salat - an Original injunction

"Explicit injunction for three times prayer is given in the Koran in several verses, which are mentioned here under:-

"Wa aqimi salwata tarfai nahar'e wa zualfan mina l-layl" (11: 114)

"And establish salat at the both ends of the day (morning and evening) and at the approach of the night"

The word tarf means an end, extremity or part, and atrafa l-nahr means two ends of the day refers to the morning and evening, or the fajr and maghrib, while zualfan mina l-layl means a short while after falling of night. Shibli Noman (1857-1914) also admits in his Sirat al-Nabawi (2:112) that this verse contains an injunction of three times prayer.

"Wa aqimisalwata li- duluki i-shamsi ila gasqi l- layl wa quranul fajar'e" (17: 78)

"And establish salat at the sun's decline till the darkness of the night and in the morning."

The word duluki i-shams means sunset refers to the salat of magrib. The word gasqi l- layl means the darkness of the night, refers to the salat of isha, and fajr obviously the salat of morning. Ibn Umar relates that the Prophet said that duluki i-shams means sinking of the sun, vide al-Itqan (2: 631-2) by Suyuti. Tirmizi and Nisai also admit veracity of this tradition related by Abu Huraira.

Referring the above Koranic verses, Reuben Levy writes in The Social Structure of Islam (London, 1962, p. 155) that, "It would appear from these verses that only three appointed times of worship are indicated