The noon prayer was the first obligatory prayer on the day...

The noon prayer was the first obligatory prayer on the day after the Prophet’s return from the Ascension (Mi’rāj) journey; 3. The Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) used to observe prayers (obligatory or voluntary) before the Prophetic mission or at least at the beginning of his mission, but the five prayers became obligatory for the Prophet and the Islamic Ummah during the Ascension journey.

The first two views are actually not more than one, and they consider the origin of the obligatory prayer for the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) and Muslims after the Ascension journey, except that the first view considers the first prayer to be observed was on the night of the ascension, while the second view considers the noon prayer of the next day to be the first prayer observed.

Some hadiths consider the first prayer of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) to be the prayer during the Ascension [3] . It is clear from these narrations that ritual prayer in its current format did not exist before the Ascension, and it was obligatory upon the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) for the first time during the Ascension journey, and he became familiar with it and learned it during this journey.

Of course, we cannot as well deny the existence of ritual prayers in a simpler form, which is a symbol of God’s worship before the Ascension. There is much evidence of these prayers held by the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him and his family) even years before the Prophethood. Some hadiths have also explicitly related the prayer in its current form to the incident of the Ascension.

For instance, Imam Baqir (peace be upon him) was reported to have said in this regard: “When the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) was taken to the Ascension and God Almighty taught him the call to prayer (Azan), Iqamah and the prayer, when he stood for prayer, God commanded him to recite Al-Hamd and Tawheed in the first rakat and said: O Muhammad!