In the Light of Tafsīr Literature, Prayer (Salāt) in the Sūrahs Sent Down before the Event of Isrā’

• Main Author: Mehmet
• Format: Article
• Language: Turkish
• Published: Amasya University 2021-06-01
• Series: Amasya İlahiyat Dergisi
• Subjects: tafsīr; qur’ān; mecca; prayer; time.
• Online Access: https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/pub/amailad/issue/62336/860707

There are many narrations in the Ḥadīth books that prayer was performed in Mecca as two rak‘ats, morning and evening, and then increased to five times. The general acceptance is that the five-time prayer is obliged after the Mi‘rāj, taking into account the story about the event of Mi‘rāj. Yet, there are disputes between the mufassirs about when the five-time prayer began. Although prayer worship is mentioned in sūrahs al-ʽAlaq, al-Muzzammil, al-Muddaththir, al-Aʽlā, al-Tīn, al-‘Aṣr, al-Kawthar, al-Najm, al-Mā‘ūn, al-Aʽrāf, al-Jinn, al-Furqān, Fāṭir, Maryam, al-Shu‘arā’ and al-Naml, which was sent down before al-Isrā’ according to nuzūl revelation orders, there is no direct word about the time of prayer in these sūrahs. Only some mufassirs have interpreted the word “ʽaṣr” in sūrah ‘Aṣr as the time of afternoon prayer. The disputes about whether prayer begins as five times before or after Mi‘rāj are formed in the context of tafsīr of verses Qāf 39-40 and Ṭā Hā 130, which are sent down before sūrah al-Isrā’ according to nuzūl order and refer to five time prayer in its content. The starting point of this conflict between the mufassirs is based on the verb “سَبِّحْ / glorify” mentioned in these verses. Because some of the mufassirs interpreted this verb as “صَلِّ / pray”, some interpreted it as normal “dhikr and glorification”. In this context mufassirs such as Muqātil b. Suleiman, Sufyān al-Sawrī, Tabarī, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Sa‘labī, Māwardī, Wāḥidī, Sam‘ānī, Ibn ‘Atiyya, Zamakhsharī, Rāzī, Bayḍāvī have interpreted the command “سَبِّحْ / glorify” in verses Qāf 39-40 and Ṭā Hā 130 as “صَلِّ / pray”. It is a remarkable consideration that Muqātil b. Suleiman, who exegesis the Qur’ān from beginning to end, gave the meaning of “perform prayer” to the verb “سَبِّحْ / glorify” in these verses. Again, these mufassirs explained the expression “قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ الشَّمْسِ / before the sunrise” as “fajr prayer”, “وَقَبْلَ الْغُرُوبِ / before the sun goes down” as “dhuhr and asr prayers” and “وَمِنَ اللَّيْلِ / night hours” as “the Maghrib and 'Isha prayers” which is mentioned in these verses with some differences. Izzet Derveze also stated that the five daily prayers were obligatory before Miʽrāj, based on the interpretations of the mufassirs mentioned in his work titled at-Tafsīr al-Ḥadīth, which he compiled based on ʽUthmān’s nuzūl order. According to him, the basis of this claim is that some mufassirs interpret the times of tasbīḥ expressed in Qāf 39-40 and Ṭā Hā 130 verses as five prayer times, based on the idea that prayer is essentially a tasbīḥ. Thus, according to him, performing five prayers means the same as glorifying Allah. But this claim is not accepted by some scholars, as it contradicts the Miʽrāj incident, nor is it clarified. Another issue causing the dispute mentioned above is the expression to أَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ لِدُلُوكِ الشَّمْسِ إِلَى غَسَقِ اللَّيْلِ وَقُرْآَنَ الْفَجْرِ “Pray from the zawal of the Sun to the darkness of the night and perform the sunrise prayer”, which is interpreted as dhuhr, asr, maghrib, isha and fajr prayers in the verse 78 of sūrah al-Isrā’, which was sent down in the 50th order after Qāf and Ṭā Hā. While the command “سَبِّحْ / glorify” in sūrahs Qāf and Ṭā Hā is interpreted by the mufassirs as a presumption for the five-time prayer, the corresponding “أَقِمِ الصَّلَاةَ / perform the prayer” command in sūrah al-Isrā’ clearly indicates the five-time prayer. It should also be noted that the question of when the five times prayer begins has a broad scale that exceeds the size of an article. For, this issue has a relationship with the Qur’ān and Tafsīr, as well as Ḥadīth and Sirah. In this article, we will focus on the words indicating the prayer and prayer times in the sūrahs that were sent down before al-Isrā’.