http://www.razanw.org/modules/alahazratbooks/item.php?itemid=30 this is a really excellent piece of research about whether salah was fard before the mi'raj and how it was performed by the prophet sallAllahu 'alaihi wasallam. alaHazrat shows that the salah before the mi'raj had takbir, qir'at, ruku' and sujud. he reconciles opinions of the hadith masters before him and presents his own scholarly opinions by using the word aqool many a time. --- my cousin was telling us only last week about the meaning of the word tasneef. a musannif is not someone who simply gathers the words of others and presents them as his own. a musannif is someone who presents his own research. he said that many in our day claim to be authors of hundreds of books but if you want to see real authorship, then read alaHazrat.
