What are the sources of islamic prayer? If not from hadith, then from where does prayer and its method come from?
Answer
A good question to ask is this: How did the first generation after Sahaba (Companions) learn praying? Did they resort to hadith which for most of them was almost non-existent or very scant?
Clearly they learnt their prayers from their elders: Sahaba, like we learn our prayers from our elders. We grow up watching our elders praying and we emulate them; that’s how this tradition started.
Indeed hadith mentions many details of the manner the prophet, alaihissalaam, prayed. It is a very useful source of getting information about the prophet’s life. However, Muslim’s haven’t learnt their religious rituals primarily through hadith. They do however sometimes correct themselves in the light of that source.