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SECOND QUESTION

Determining the rak’ah, timings,elements etc. of Prayer – Namaaz

(Difference Between Ibadaat and Laws)

 Some where in a previous paper, you had written about Zakah. – “Since the Quran has not fixed its value, it means the Government, established on the basis of Quranic principles by the rulers impregnated with the Islamic conduct, will be free to fix the value of Zakah suited to its own time”.

Insisting to impose limit over a thing the Quran has not restrained, on the plea that it has been the rule from the time of the Messenger (S) down to day, or the jurisprudence have made such a decision, is wrong in your opinion.  

This generates another question.

A.     The Quran has laid emphasis on Namaaz – Prayer – without giving any detail of its timings, number, elements and the mode of its offering. On this very base, the Ahl-e-Quran tried to draw the rationale of 5 prayers from the Quran. The palpable mark for the tenuousness of their arguments is that one group of this very faction could become convinced of 3-prayers only.

B.     The same is the case with the rak’ahs of Namaaz – Prayer.

C.     The elements of Namaaz – Prayer –and the detail of the mode of its offering are also trouble shooting. If Hadith is the history of Deen only – and not the Deen itself, worthwhile to be followed or obeyed, then the sequence of Bowing and Prostrating – Rukoo and Sujood – can change. There can only be one Prostration – Sajda; even the fixation of rak’ahs can be modified on individual or collective decision in all climes and ages. Beside Surah Fateha, whichever-is-understood-to-be-appropriate can also be recited instead of whatever is read in the prayer. 

Any-way, one group of Ahl-e-Quran, modifying the present mode of offering the prayer, has preferred the method established by Maulvi (late) Abdullah.

(By the repeated mention of Ahl-e-Quran, I do never mean that your belief is identical to that of theirs, because I remember, you have, through your books, expressly segregated yourself from this belief. What I mean is that while restricting to the Quran alone, this type of situation can come to pass).  

Long ago I read your pamphlet on Personality Worship. While penning down these apprehensions, I made a search to find out that copy of the Magazine. It looks as if I have lost it some where. So I am writing this all with the help of my memory. 

In that Magazine, you had written: the matter of Namaaz – Prayer -can be solved with the phenomenon of continuity; since the prayer is being offered by this same way from the last 1350 years, so we ought to offer it by the same method today.  

If the argument of “continuity phenomenon” is correct for prayer, then why not the same argument be held true for Zakah? Kindly help me in eradicating this contradiction. 

ANSWER  

Whatever I have written in my paper is this. The details of those laws the Quran has mentioned in principle  - without defining their details - can be modified, annulled or repealed according to the changing exigencies of all the climes and ages, but the competent authority for such change can not be any single person or any group of persons. Only the successors of Allah’s Messenger (S) hold such a prerogative. And by the successor of Allah’s Messenger (S) is meant the Government that is established in consonance with the Quranic principles to enforce the Quran’s Order.

CHANGE IN DETAILS – BYLAWS 

First of all, look to this entity that the point in discussion is the law, not the Ibadaat. The necessity for change in a law compatible with the changing exigencies of time, place and circumstance is quite evident. But this necessity in Ibadaat is very scarce. Take Namaaz – Prayer – and Zakah, for example. The need of change and modification in the rate of Zakah (i.e. Government Taxes) is such a reality, which warrants no argument. On the contrary, take the example of Namaaz – Prayer. Where will the exigencies of the time (not the personal inclinations, but the urges of the time) mould its details, the bylaws? What will be the urgency warranting to change ‘subhaana rabbe yal azeez’ for ‘subhaan ullahe t’alaa ammaa yase foon’ in rukoo – Bowing, or two Sujood – Prostrations - in lieu of one? 

DIFFERENCES

In addition to it, we have cognizance of this fact that there are differences in the present details of Namaaz – prayer – among the various factions. I understand that according to the Quran, the first and the foremost duty of the Islamic Government ought to be to arrange for letting these difference, operating as the impeding blocks of schisms and groupings among the Muslims, wipe off gradually. Had the sequence of his (S) succession been perpetuated after the Messenger of Allah (S), there would have been no existence of these factions because the Messenger of Allah (S) had left behind him a single united Ummah, not the conglomeration of Ummah segregated among various factions and schisms. With this prospect in view, if the Quranic Government devises any single agreed form of Namaaz – prayer –, it would be imperative to bring about changes and modifications in its present form which at present is bittered with differences. But side by side, whichever form this Quranic Government gives shape to will form the legal Namaaz – prayer.

SEQUENTIAL CONTINUITY 

But unless the Quranic Government is established among us, the only possible way to deter the chaos and distraction, or to reduce the intensity, is to maintain the same way it has perpetually come down to us. But the condition is that we are satisfied that such and such a deed has continuously come down to us from the period of ‘the Messenger of Allah (S) and his companions.’ And every individual or faction is not allowed to devise its own ways and means. This is the aim  - that the deeds coming down to the Ummah in the sequence of continuity are sustained in the same way provided these are not in contravention to any self-explained injunction of the Quran. It, as I understood and still understand, is the only mode of protection for the Muslims in India (and here – in Pakistan – till the Quranic Government is established). This can save the nation of any further deterioration and disintegration.

MISTAKE OF AHL-E-QURAN

To me the basic error of the Ahl-e-Quran is that they started defining from the Quran the details of the injunctions, which the Quran has given in principles only. Its result could have been nothing except guessing and conjecturing. And then the conjectures they so arrived at could not be decisive for the nation. This prerogative as I have said repeatedly goes to the Quranic Government alone. During the age of non-concentrism of Deen, I give preference to the deeds infiltrated through the sequence of continuity rather than the individual conjectures. 

IBADAAT AND LAWS

I may report this as well that the difference I made in the realm of laws and Ibadaat is only to make this understandable that the need of any change and modification in the latter caused by the change in time is scarce. It may not be mistaken here that the laws pertain to our worldly life and the Ibadaat to the Hereafter, or the laws are applicable to the material world and the Ibadaat to the spiritual. In Islam there is no line of demarcation between the World and the Hereafter, between the matter and the soul. Its laws and deeds all are its Ibadaat. Obedience to every Quranic injunction is Ibadat; and every Ibadat in itself is toned with the status of a law in life. From this vintage point, if you desire to understand, the principle I have mentioned in my paper will equally apply to the law and Ibadaat both. It means if the successor of the Allah’s Messenger (S) – i.e. the Quranic Government – considers that the requirements of the time have made it imperative to bring about some partial changes and modifications in a particular form of Namaaz the Quran has not defined, then this Quranic Government in principle will be the competent authority to incorporate such changes and/or modifications in it. But our difficulty is, whenever we think of this idea of making any changes and/or modifications, our vision engulfs those who are wielders of power in our present Governments. And then the very idea of this concept makes our soul tremble with this notion that such a prerogative for making any change and/or modification in the laws the Messenger (S) had prescribed can not be entrusted to these people. At that time we forget that this right is the only privilege of the successors of the Messenger of Allah (S) and none else. And when the successors of the Messenger (S) think of bringing change in any order of the Messenger (S), they will obviously do that when they, from the deepest recesses of their heart, reach the decision that…..………. Had the Messenger of Allah (S) been there at this time, he would have himself amended that order. This all confusion gets its ingraining by getting lost of that difference.

(1953)