Thank you for the detail reply, it is appreciated.
I have been a student for Arabic language for several years now and the beauty of Arabic is that
Your analogy is not correct, I am a student of Arabic language and I can tell you that salat does not mean namaaz as we know it, please look at the dictionaries.
Praying to Allah is part of the fundamental belief in Allah and as believers we should be constantly praying to Allah in our actions and spirit.
The debate we have been having here is that of hadith and the authenticity of hadith, while the Quran's living accuracy is guaranteed by the Quran itself (of course Allah) there is no such guarantee of hadith.
All the 6 hadith books have been complied by people from outside Hijaz and well over 200 years after Hijrah that is why there are questions marks on their accuracy, in fact you will find that there are many different versions of Bukhari itself and it was altered many times in the history depending whose political narrative it suited at the time. These are undeniable facts which sunni scholars often debate, remember before the invent of printing press and before it was adopted by the Muslims, there were known number of copies of Hadith books in the world, for any ruler to change these books according to their whims and political gains was not only very easily done but was widely known.
The only text that could not not be altered was the Quran because so many people had memorised the Quran by heart, however, the corrupt rulers did ask clergymen to promote different meanings of certain words. In the recent past this is exactly what was done by Ghulam Ahmed Mirza who promoted certain interpretations of many Quranic verses to suit his narrative. Even now a days certain religious political parties are saying that if you become their members then you are guaranteed paradise etc.
Allah asks us again and again in the Quran to refelct on the verses so that we can be guided and whilst doing that even if someone comes up with an understanding which may seem outrageous and a complete shift from the norm then it doesn't mean that it should be mocked, one can choose not to accept or give counter argument. Allah is the protector of the Quran and Islam irrespective of what we may conclude. We are followers of Allah's deen and not protectors, He is sufficent for the protection.
All debates/discussions must be done in a respectable manner and at worst we should agree to disagree. Allah knows best.
And who said salat will exactly translate to namaz...You think i don't know that?
That's the lost in translation syndrome i was telling you about.
Sometimes people diseased with it take the literal meaning and other times the practical meaning. Guided by their agendas.
So there's way to do debate. I keep saying this. If you do not agree with the established or commonly known definition or method of something, you will need to first enlighten the other party of your beliefs and your definitions. If you cannot do that, this is just a point scoring match in which you just want to win by attacking others' beliefs since you have none of your own or none that others know of or you lack the ground work for your claims - just shooting in dark. By you i don't exactly mean you, but anyone who does that. I do not know for sure if you are doing it. Therefore if you are, you will need to establish counter definitions and meanings and with evidence. Not just imaginations. That is how research is done and accepted.
In that case first thing you need to do is to offer your own definition or translation of what Salat is proving that when call to prayer is given "hai allas salah" has nothing to do with calling to prayer, the physical action of performing the prayer as it is done in a masjid for centuries taught by the prophet himself and told in quran itself as i mentioned before. This is the starting point you need to start with and disprove it with substantial acceptable evidence.
May be you can also answer these simple question to start with. Do you offer salat? If yes why? If not why not? What is salat to you if what billions of muslims do in Makkah or Medina mosques every day and every year is not salat? What do you call that? on what basis do you reject accepting it as salat. And salat could be called namaz, prayer, XYZ, whatever in different cultures given that they all do the same actions more or less with minor differences...So how do you prove ALL of them are calling it different but doing the same ritual.
Then...If you do believe hadith books were forged then you will need to provide acceptable evidence to that regard. You will need to prove that hadith collectors did this this and that and here is the proof they forged it. Simply drawing general conclusions that something happen then and then so that must mean it is like this - no that's not the educated way. You will need to prove that hadith were never written on stone or papers in prophets own time even.
Try writing a simple master thesis in a university outside pakistan and you'll know how difficult it is to do real research and disprove established science or religious facts.
It took einstein a good tough time to prove why newtonian physics is not applicable to quantum scale. And no body believed him or wanted to until he proved it with real world facts. that's how educated world works.
The last problem i want to draw your attention to is, the difference between you and me is that i do not reject ALL hadith or ALL sunnah just because some hadith can be weak or even fabricated and yes its true - i said it here many times. This as i said will have to done on a case by case basis. Doing this in one go in a blanket statement will take one outside bounds of islam if they reject all concepts of islam and hadith and sunnah and then say what pillars what islam what sect and what what. Now i do not know if you do that. I'm just saying that if you do but you'll have to tell this yourself in black and white.
Hope you will understand.
en.wikipedia.org
