Harmonising contradictory narrations (the time for afternoon prayers) (2)

In the previous blog, we discussed how there are different narrations on the beginning time for Dhuhr and Asr, and that there were two categories:

1. The start for both is midday
2. The start for both is after midday (there are different narrations implying varying lengths of time after midday)

It is clear that these are contradictory i.e. both cannot be true. However, both opinions are justified by narrations that are sahih. Therefore, from the perspective of rijal studies, they all came from the Imam (AS). Based on this, the first port of call for the scholar is to try and “harmonise” (jam’) these narrations and find a solution that fits both of these sets of narrations.


Ayatullah Khui then considers the following possible solution:

• All other things being equal, the best time (farida) for Dhuhr and Asr, is midday
• However, if you pray the nafila prayers, then the time for Dhuhr and Asr becomes later, and the varying terms mentioned for the time period after midday are only examples of how long it would take to pray the nafila prayers, and are not themselves the time for praying Dhuhr and Asr


He supports this harmonisation using a range of narrations, some of which I will outline below:

• The hadith of ‘Amr ibn Handhala: “…[the 6th Imam (AS) said]: ‘when the sun reaches midday, the time for Dhuhr begins unless you are about to pray – and that is up to you. If you cut down [on the prayer], then [the time for Dhuhr begins] when you finish your prayers, and if you take longer [on the prayer], then [again], [the time is] when you have finished your prayers.” (1)
• Muwatthaq narration from Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Ash’ari: “…Some of the people said: ‘we pray the first [prayer i.e. Dhuhr] when it is two qadam, and Asr when it is four qadam.’ Abu Abdullah [the 6th Imam] (AS) said: ‘half of this is preferable to me’.” (2)

This solves the contradiction! There is an extra complication that I will discuss in the next blog inshaAllah – but hope this makes sense!

By the way, if anyone is interested in writing a guest blog at some point, please do get in touch – we now have about 60 people getting this in their email inbox…

(1)Wasa`il, Volume 4, page 133 in the Chapter on prayer times, Chapter 5, Hadith 9
(2) Wasa`il, Volume 4, page 146 in the Chapter on prayer times, Chapter 8, Hadith 22

Harmonising contradictory narrations (the time for afternoon prayers) (1)

In the next few blogs, I will be looking at Ayatullah Khui again. He was one of the most illustrious scholars of the modern era, and by looking at his works, we are best able to understand and gain insight into the mind of a scholar!

The topic we will be focussing on is seeing how apparently contradictory narrations are harmonised (jam' urfi) by Ayatullah Khui in his Tanqih (1) - we will do this by looking at how he concludes what the time for Salat al-Dhuhr and Salat al-Asr is. His argument is lengthy and I will summarise to help illustrate the point as succinctly as possible, whilst maintaining enough to show how he argues his point.

Part A - the start of Dhuhr

From the Qur'an (17:78), it is clear that the beginning of Dhuhr is midday (duluk in the verse means zawal i.e. midday). However, there are two groups of narrations about the start of Dhuhr (and Asr):

1. Those which make it clear that the start of the time for these prayers is midday - e.g. Zurara from the 5th Imam (AS) who said: "When it becomes midday, the times for Dhuhr and Asr begin" (2)

2. Those which imply the time is a bit after midday - these are split into several sub-categories based on how much after midday:

A. e.g. the sahih narration from Isma'il from 'Abd al-Khaliq, who said: "I asked Abu Abdillah (AS) about the time of Dhuhr, and he said: 'it is a qadam after midday'..." (3)

B. e.g. sahih narration from Fadlaa' from both the 5th and 6th Imam (AS) that they both said: "The time for Dhuhr is two qadam after midday, and Asr is two qadam after that." (4);

C. there are others which talk about it being "dhira' after midday" (5);

D. or qama (6).

[Note I am not going to worry about the meaning of qadam [foot], dhira' [armlength] or qama [body length] here, other than to note it has an implication of a bit after midday, and the relationship between these varies e.g. 2 qadam = 1 dhira' but it is complicated so I will not go into it further]

It should be clear from these narrations that some seem to suggest that it starts at midday, and others have different times slightly after midday - in the next blog, we will look at how Syed Khui deals with this apparent contradiction.

(1)volume 2 on Salat, Page 81 onwards
(2)Wasa`il, Volume 4, page 125 in the Chapter on prayer times, Chapter 4, Hadith 1 (there are others e.g. hadith 5 and 9 on the same page)
(3) As above, Chapter 8, Hadith 11 (there are others e.g. hadith 17 in the same chapter)
(4) As above, Hadith 1
(5) As above, Hadith 3
(6) As above, Hadith 9, 13, 29