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5 Prayers In Judaism
To my knowledge, there are only 3 daily prayers prescribed in Judaism. How does Ghamidi sahab conclude that the 5 daily prayers in Islam are a sunnah of the previous messengers (peace be upon them all)?
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6 Replies
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5 Prayers In Judaism
updated 1 year, 1 month ago
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Prayer was always offered five times a day. According to a narrative (Abū Dā’ūd, No: 393), Gabriel himself informed the Prophet (sws) of this fact.
No doubt, the Jews now offer the prayer thrice a day, however, Louis Ginsberg while presenting his research on the Talmud of Jerusalem has explained that this phenomenon is similar in nature to what the Shiites have in them: by combining zuhr with ‘asr and maghrib with ‘ishā on the principle of jam‘ bayna al-salātayn (combining two prayers) they have practically made these four into two and if we add fajr to them, the total number of prayers will come out to be three. Ginsberg has pointed to the fact that in the time of the writing down of Talmud, the Jews used to pray five times a day: thrice for the prayer which is offered till now, and twice for reciting the Shema. However, later because of certain practical difficulties the prayers of the morning and evening were combined and ultimately three prayers remained.
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Thank you @sohailtahir , that’s really helpful!
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Very informative
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“Ginsberg has pointed to the fact that in the time of the writing down of Talmud, the Jews used to pray five times a day”.
Three daily prayers are mentioned twice in Old Testament (Psalms 55:17, Daniel 6:10). Prophets Daniel and David prayer three times a day, as per Old Testament. So the argument sounds quite weak. If there is any historic evidence, please cite.
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While Psalms 55:16-17 cannot be taken in the meaning of three Salah only, there is room that this sentence can be interpretated in the same way as Quran talks about remembering God in the morning and in the evening (i.e. Quran 33:42) to comprehensively cover all the Salah of the day.
Daniel 6:10 is usually used to infer three prayers in Judaism, however this represents three regular prayers but does not include two additional prayers for recitation of Shema as per Abraham I Katsh.
Attached is the relevant excerpt from Pages 8-11 from Abraham I Katsh’s Book, Judaism in Islam, 1st ed. (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1954) where he has expounded on this topic and relevant research findings of Dr. Luois Ginzberg have also been shared with appropriate references. In order to explore the matter academically in more depth, it is recommended that one should study Dr. Luois Ginzberg’s commentary on Talmud Yerushalmi (the Jerusalem Talmud).
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