THE IMPACT OF QIRA’ATS ON PRAYER REGULATIONS

Qira'ats present a very significant study of the Qur'an in terms of understanding and interpreting the Qur'anic text. They are not only exotic styles of voice variations and modulation, but an integral part of the language of the Qur'an, its lexical, morphological and syntactic structure. Understanding that aspect is a prerequisite for a correct interpretation of the greatest part of the Qur'anic text. The Qur'an is the first source of Islamic law. Based on its text, general and specific Sharia norms were derived. This aspect of the Qur'an has always been a subject of interest for numerous Islamic scholars in the context of the interpretation of normative ayats – ayat al-ahkam. The Exalted Allah orders Muslims to keep their prayers, perform them at a certain time, and in particular, the middle prayer. There are different opinions of Islamic scholars regarding the dilemma: which is the middle prayer? Following the Hadith of the Prophet of Allah, s .a.w.s., we find out it is the Asr prayer. Furthermore, the hazrat Aisha 's narration and the Qira'at Ubejj ibn Ka'ba confirmed the attitude of the majority of Islamic scholars that the middle prayer is the Asr prayer. This paper presents the Sharia-legal comments of well-known Islamic scholars about prayer regulations, but only from the aspect of Qira'ats. In addition, the paper shows how and to what extent Islamic scholars relied on Qira'ats while establishing, deriving and presenting Sharia norms, starting from the fact that Mezhep- legal dispute, to a certain extent, arouse from different Qira'ats, as well as from different morphological, grammatical and stylistic analyses.