Why we pray
May 9th, 2007
The fact of God’s existence is evident in every flower, every insect, and the fact that our earth is sustained in space unaided. Evidence is everywhere, from the mysteries of the human brain to weather patterns to babies being born. We can define and categorize these things, but we cannot create them. Believing in God is logical and natural.
Belief in God is the easy part of religion. It’s finding which set of dogma to subscribe to — if any — that’s the hard part. But it’s a necessary search, I think. As religious practice without fiery belief would quickly become dry ritualism, a prelude to hypocrisy and legalism, fiery belief without religious practice would be unstable and easily extinguished. The first is an empty lantern, providing no warmth or light. The second is a candle with no lantern, easily snuffed.
In Islam, remembering death is not morbid. It’s just good common sense. Every one of us will die, whether we are sick or healthy, young or old — and whether we or our families want us to or not. Remembering that each of us has an ordained number of steps to walk and an ordained number of breaths to inhale is vital to enjoying life on earth.
People bent toward the material side of life often point out that our five senses perceive only this world, but that is only part of the truth. To imagine that these 7 to 70 years are all we get is mentally and emotionally painful, and many people continually use various mind-altering substances to escape from this one disturbing fact. To imagine that this life is all we get, is also to completely discount the unceasing nature of the soul. Each of us longs for eternity, and desires for good to be rewarded and evil to be punished justly. Even if God didn’t exist, humans would have to invent religion to have peace from the world’s strife. Even if God didn’t exist, humans would have to invent heaven and hell in order to make right the world’s injustice.
Muslims pray five times a day. It seems excessive at first, until we realize how much we need each of those communions with God. The idea is that a man cannot become too dirty if he is washing in a river five times a day. Ritual prayer, then, purifies our days.
Each prayer corresponds to a season and part of human life, keeping us mindful of the passage of time, and keeping us grateful for each breath God allows. The dawn prayer, performed before sunrise, reminds us of birth and springtime. The noon prayer, performed after the sun is at its peak and before it’s halfway down its arc, reminds us of youth and summertime. The afternoon prayer, performed between the halfway point of the sun and its disappearance, reminds us of old age and autumn. The sunset prayer, performed after sunset and before total darkness, reminds us of death and winter. The night prayer, performed anytime during the blackest part of night, reminds us of the grave.
Before the prayers, we wash our faces, hands and feet. We turn a clean prayer rug in the direction of Mecca, where Prophet Abraham built the first temple to God, and we recite some chapters from the Qur’an, the holy book revealed to Prophet Muhammad(1). We bow and prostrate and sit for short periods. Altogether, the washing and prayers take less than one hour of each day. Thus we invest one-24th of earthly life, for a 99 percent chance at forever.
Footnotes
A Muslimah in Orlando
May 2nd, 2007
I was first exposed to Islam by my husband, Yusuf, who is from Turkey. As the proud descendant of Ottoman sultans and Sufi mystics, my husband was everything I wasn’t — sure of himself, his culture and his faith — and eager to discuss all the topics I had found trouble engaging others in, like religion and global politics and the search for the meaning of life. That’s what got me more than anything. Here was someone who was like me — someone who couldn’t rest without answers to the Big Questions, someone who needed friends and theoretical conversations like other people need food and air — and yet he was comfortable in his own skin.
I read every book I could get my hands on, I had long discussions with Muslims and non-Muslims about religion, I compared and contrasted Islam and the Qur’an with Christianity and the Bible. It took me nearly five months of wrestling with myself before I could say my shahada — my testimony of faith in one God, and in the last prophet, Muhammad — and many more months before I could tell anyone besides my husband and a few Turkish women I’d been blessed to meet.
First, I want to be honest. There’s something totally absurd about being an American Muslim. It seems counterintuitive to everyone, even me sometimes, that a person of European descent from a Judeo-Christian background would convert to Islam. Maybe because it’s seen as a religion of the Middle East, which is typically thought of as a sweltering, barbaric sort of place where swarthy men and frightened women live.
Islam is tainted in the Western mind by being synonymous with misogynistic backwaters like Saudi Arabia. And to convert now — especially right now, while the West is well into its campaign to colonize the Middle East(1), and the news agencies are doing their part by so routinely portraying Muslims as reactionary and intolerant that it’s not just a stereotype anymore — well, that’s just crazy.
But Islam’s beauty is like the sun; it can be hidden only from those who shut their eyes. Here are the answers to common misconceptions about the religion, sort of like "Hey, kids! It’s not just for Arabs anymore!" What appeals to me most about the religion is that faith doesn’t require me to stifle my curiosity. There’s a quote I love by John A. Hutchinson: "Unthinking faith is a curious offering to be made to the creator of the human mind." With any rule or regulation handed down — five daily prayers, a prohibition on pork and alcohol, the headscarf, etc. — I am never discouraged from asking, rather I am actually encouraged to ask, "Why?"
In this space, I will tackle all the topics, big and small, that occur to me in this unusual life I am living — as an American Muslim woman in the 21st century.
Footnotes
- See "Terrorism is what other people do" for an interesting theory.