Answer
Asalamu Alaikum Mirza,
Thank you for contacting About Islam with your question.
Your demand for the meaning of the Quranic verses without reference to hadith is a bit steep. This is because the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him-PBUH) and it was he who taught the correct interpretation to us. Therefore, the best interpreter of the Quran was the Prophet himself.
This becomes evident in the matter of the verses that tell us of how to pray: The practical demonstration of it has been done by the Prophet (PBUH), and so, our method of wudu (ablution) is according to what the Prophet has taught us. That means what the Prophet taught us cannot be against the Quran.
- The verses you quoted mean that the earlier prophets gave notions of the Last Prophet in the earlier scriptures. So, the followers of these earlier prophets have no reason to deny the Last Prophet.
- We don’t have different ways of praying.
- When we pray to Allah, we don’t invoke (in the sense “call for help from”) Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), along with Allah Almighty. Rather we are praying to Allah Almighty for the Prophet, who also did the same thing: that is to say, he pray for himself just as we pray to Allah for ourselves and sometimes ask others to pray for us.
- We are commanded by Allah not to make any distinction among His prophets. This means that we should respect all prophets alike. When we are praying for Prophet Muhammad, we are not making any distinction between him and other prophets. That is to say, we don’t mean that the other prophets are less important. We pray for Muhammad just as we pray for our parents and our teachers; we don’t mean then that our parents are more important than all other parents, etc.
Hope this helps. Please keep in touch.
Salam.
Please continue feeding your curiosity, and find more info in the following links:
Prophet Muhammad – The Spiritual Leader