Can We Deduce Method And Rakah Of 5 Salah From Quran Without Ahadith?
There is no mention of the method and rakat there in the Qur’an. These came from the sunnah of the prophet.
Instead of trying to find in Quran the salat that we inherited from our forefathers, we need to reverse our reasoning and ask slightly different questions: What is the method of Salat in Quran and are we following it? How many daily mandatory Salats have God prescribed in Quran, which is a complete, perfect and fully detailed Scripture (16:89, 6:114, 7:52, 10:37, 12:111)? Quran being a complete, perfect, and fully detailed Scripture, is not in need of embodying the Salat that we perform claiming it to be Prophetic or Abrahamic, but WE are required to perform Salat in accordance with Quran. We cannot superimpose the tradition over Quran or expect Quran to narrate us our traditions. The flow of information runs to the other direction. Once we are clear about this and trust the word of God that His Scripture is complete, perfect and fully detailed, then we can find specific details (including the number of Rakats, which according to Quran, at minimum permissible are 2, and at maximum does not have a limit). In addition, there is a whole lot of other specifics and details that unfortunately we don’t bother to follow. For instance: What does He command us to recite in Salat and what is it that He forbids? What should the tone of Salat be, and do we comply with it? What are the exact timings? All these details are clearly explained in Quran. Many of these details make the Salat of Quran quite different than that of Sunnis and Shias. The general principle in this regard is: Whatever practice or component that we follow or want to follow, if it is not mentioned in God’s fully detailed Scripture, can only be performed as long as it doesn’t violate any specific commandment of Quran. If God forbids us from calling anyone besides Him in Salat (72:18), then we cannot address the Prophet in attahiyat. The guidance given by Quran, is unfortunately scorned by majority of the Muslims, who don’t trust the Revelation and word of God and His Prophet, and consider it incomplete despite the assurance, thus prefer to follow Traditions of their forefathers (Bukhari and Shafi etc) instead of the Scripture given by God and His prophet, as exactly informed by Quran: 2:170 When they are told, “Follow what GOD has revealed herein,” they say, “We follow only what we found our parents doing.” What if their parents did not understand, and were not guided?