Origins Of "Extra-Quranic" Prayers - A Thesis

A reader sent me (thank you very much) a link to a thesis written by a student about the origins of ritual prayer. 

Here is the link to the pdf document :  http://m.friendfeed-media.com/da73572396be7e0066857e724fd1ce3d077cc2c1
 

It is an interesting read.

Here are some pages :

 

My comments :  Well you cannot deny the Zoroastrian prayer rituals existed (and still exist). Zoroastrians pray five times a day and they perform the ablution as well.  The Jews and the Christian Copts also perform ritual prayers. That is part of their history that has continued to this day and you cannot deny it.

But there are other parts of this thesis that I do not agree with. There is no historical evidence at all for many of the things the writer talks about. 

I have said before that it is the religious people who say that there are no prayer details mentioned in the Quran. Referring the Quran alone, they cannot perform the five daily prayers. 

Other than the word salat, there are no details of the prayer. Hence the requirement for extra Quranic sources to perform the prayers.

Many Muslims do not know that the prayer is detailed in the books of fiqh of the main sects (Hanafi, Shafie, Maliki, Hambali). 

They also do not know that these fiqh sects preceded Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmizi etc (the people who wrote the extra Quranic hadith).

This is just some further information.

If we do not read and learn then we will not know.  It will be katak bawah tempurung all over again.

Here are two short videos :

The first one here is orthodox Coptic prayer.

The next one here is orthodox Jewish prayer :