Al-Salat fi al-Kitab wa al-Sunnah

(Prayer in the Book and Sunnah)

Muhammad Muhammadi Rayshahri

With the collaboration of Morteza Khushnasib,

1st ed., 1997, 256 pages, Arabic

Dar al-Hadith, Qom, Iran

The book is an attempt to elabo­ate the significant status of ritual pra­er as well as its related issues as reflected in Shi`ite and Sunni had­ths. In the author's view, Muslims have devoted a great deal of effort and paid special attention to ritual prayer and have penned numerous books on the subject and its secrets. However, there was as yet no work devoted to the examination of issues relating to this great divine obligation from the Shi`ite and Sunni viewpoints and to the explanation of the constructive role of this divine obligation. The present book, part of the Enc­yclopedia of Mizan al-Hik­mah, is intended to fill this gap in the Isla­mic libraries.

In this work, the author through a new and documented met­hod tries to shed light on the prayer as a fun­damental religious practice and a basic need of the society. He bases his examin­ation on the Holy Quran and the hadiths transmitted by Shi`­ite and Sunni traditionists.

The forty chapters of the book cover the following topics: the necessity of the prayer, the philosophy behind the prayer, the prayer before Islam, the virtues of the prayer, the characteristics of ritual prayer, the encouragement to establish prayer, dilig­ence regarding ritual prayer, the timings of ritual prayer and dili­gence regarding them, the coercing of family members to per­form ritual prayer, the virtues of the performers of ritual prayer, the regulations of ritual prayer, the external and internal rites of ritual prayer, takbir (chanting God is the Greatest in the beginning of prayer) and its rites, the rites of genufle­ction and prostration, the rites of standing up after prostration, qunut (suppli­cations in the second unit or rik`a of the prayer before genufle­ction) and its rites, tashahhud and its rites, salam and its rites, general remarks regarding the rites of ritual prayer, actions that are unbefitting of the performer of ritual prayer, discouraging  the attitude of taking ritual prayer lightly and thus ruining it, the effects  of ritual prayer and its generalities, the consequences of non-per­form­ance of ritual prayer, the punishment for the failure to per­form ritual prayer, the truth of ritual prayer, the factors of and the obstacles in the way of acceptance of ritual prayer, the vir­tues of dhikr (praising of the Lord) and supplication after ritual prayer, which is worthy after the performance of ritual prayer, the supplications reported in hadiths that are to be recited after ritual prayer, the virtues of awaiting ritual prayer, the methods of performance of ritual prayer used by the Holy Prophet's household, combining of ritual prayer or its performance on separate occasions, and the performance of the recovering prayer  that has been missed out. 

Each chapter opens with verses from the Holy Quran and goes on to discuss prophetic hadiths and those of the Infallible Imams (PBUT). The footnotes include the references for the hadiths. Oly #

The Arabic text of the work, along with its Persian trans­lation, is published with the following bibliographical data: al- Salat fi al-kitab wa al-sunnah, with Persian Translation, trans. Abdolhadi Mas`udi, Qom: Dar al-Hadith, 1998, 257 pages.

A summary version of the work has also been published with the following bibliographical data: Simay-e Namaz, translation and summarization of Abadolhadi Mas`udi, Dar al-Hadith, 2001, 78 pages.

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