Blog

1. What were your expectations of this religion? Before we started studying Isla

1. What were your expectations of this religion? Before we started studying Islam, did you have any previous knowledge or experience with this religion? 2. What were the most interesting things you learned about this religious tradition? 3. Was there anything about this religion that really surprised you? Or that defied your expectations? 4. What is one thing that you appreciate or respect about this religion? This could be an attitude, a practice, a belief, a ritual, etc. 5. Which of the two readings (“Jihad” by Nasr or Letter from Hajj by Malcolm X) did you find the most interesting? Why? What did you learn about the religion from the reading? Was there anything that you agreed or disagreed with in the reading? 6. What would you like to learn more about in this religion? Or what questions do you still have about this religion? Your journal should be at least 600 words long and contain at least two direct quotations from the readings (from both of the assigned readings) along with the page number (if available). There are no right or wrong answers for this assignment. You will be graded on the completeness of your journal and whether you followed the assignment instructions. The journal is not due until we finish studying Buddhism, but you are welcome to start working on it as we are learning about it. All right, so in this video lecture, we’re going to start talking about Muslim rituals and we’re going to start talking about Muslim rituals by going over what are known as the five pillars in Islam, the five pillars. Many of you may have heard of these before. They’re considered sort of the foundation for if a Muslim wants to leave, wants to leave. If a Muslim wants to lead a proper devout Muslim life, these are the five actions we’ll see. Most of them are actions as well as a belief that are supposed to sort of guide that life of faith, life of devotion. What it means to live a good Muslim life is to as much as possible follow these five pillars. They’re called the five pillars. May sound kind of strange because usually we think of a building having four pillars that hold up, you know, the sort of support the building itself. And that’s because within the five pillars, there’s actually one pillar that is a belief. And then there are four pillars that are actions. And so it’s kind of seen that the belief is the foundation that supports the four action pillars. So that’s where the understanding comes from. So to lead a good Muslim life, you follow these five pillars. The first one is Shahada, which is the statement of faith or belief in Islam. And basically the Shahada is just a single sentence. And it’s actually the exact sentence that we started this unit with. I believe that there is no God but God and that Mohammed is his messenger or Mohammed is his prophet. That is the Shahada. That is the statement of faith or belief in Islam. So as we said at the beginning of this unit, really to be a Muslim simply means that you believe in the truth of that statement. There’s no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger. This phrase itself is, of course, sort of woven into the fabric of Muslim life. It’s a phrase that you hear all the time in the calls to prayer, in the daily prayers, in the Koran and artwork’s. So it’s a very common phrase because it is that sort of summation of Muslim belief. This is what Muslims believe and it’s actually what you state. If someone is going to convert to Islam, there’s no like baptism ritual. There’s no sort of other, you can say sort of like action ritual that people do to convert to Islam. The conversion ritual is really just to speak that sentence out loud in the presence of others, some people would say, in the presence of an imam, but not every Muslim would insist on that, simply to speak those words publicly in the presence of others and to believe them. That is how one converts to Islam or how one becomes a Muslim. There are, of course, other articles of faith in the Muslim religion. They’re believed to be six articles of faith, the belief in God, belief in the Prophet’s belief in the angels, belief in the revelations, belief in the day of judgment and should remember the last one. I’m having a hard time. Oh, and belief in the in the oneness and omniscience of God. Right. Believe that God knows all. So those are the six the six statements or sort of the six beliefs, foundational beliefs in Islam. But the Shahada is really the belief in one God monotheism and that Mohammed is his messenger or prophet. The next the next pillar that I have here is Salah Salah simply means prayer, and it refers to the daily prayers that Muslims are required to do. So Muslims are required to pray five times a day. Those five daily prayers happen at sunrise, at noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and in the evening. OK, so they happen at set times throughout the day. But the times have to do with the movement of the sun, right? Like the first one, is it sunrise? The last one is after the sun has set. So at night. So so the times of the daily prayers do change slightly over the course of the year. Every day they’re at slightly different times because the times of the daily prayers are set by the movement of the sun. So if you have a track like on your phone or another weather app, right every day, the time of the sunrise and the time of the sunset are slightly different, right? It might be one minute or two minutes different from the previous day. So the five daily prayers are at set times throughout the day. However, those set times very slightly, as you know, as the movement of the sun changes, especially over the course of the year. Different seasons, right. The first daily prayer could be very, very early in the morning or it could be much later, depending on, you know, is it summer or winter, daylight saving, you know, all these things like what what time does the sun rise where you are? So Muslims are required to pray five times a day. There are these set these that times for the prayer and some Muslims. Do the prayers at those exact times, so every day the sort of prayer times are published, you could say, or sort of made known through the time, right. As soon as, you know, the time of the sunrise. So some some Muslims definitely try to do their daily prayers at that exact time. Right. If it’s like, oh, the morning prayer is going to be at, you know, sunrise at six thirty two a.m. or something like that. Some Muslims tried to do their prayers at those exact times, but in general it’s understood that that’s not always possible depending on our schedules or our daily lives. So the idea is that you actually had the entire window from the, you know, the time of the prayer until the time of the next prayer to to complete that prayer. Right. So the first prayer in the morning is six thirty in the morning. The midday prayers around noon. If you can’t necessarily do it at six thirty, you have that whole time. But of course, there’s there’s a spectrum of understandings in terms of of how how lenient that is. Some Muslims believe that you need to be very strict and try to do your prayer as much as possible at that exact time or as close to that exact time as you can. And then some Muslims see it more as a window in order to get to get that prayer done before the time of the next daily prayer. The prayers also are what we would call prescribed prayers. They’re not necessarily personal freestyle prayers, but when Muslims do their daily prayers, there are set actions and set words. So there are set words that they are supposed to repeat so that the each of the daily in each of the daily prayers are slightly different. But it’s not it’s important to know that it’s not just sort of like a personal like a stop and have a personal moment with God where you just sort of talk to God casually, you know, sort of, you know, express your own hopes and fears and prayers and things like that. There are actually set words that go into each of the daily prayers, proscribed words that you’re supposed to say. And they’re usually words from the Koran that talk about belief in God, oneness of God, love of God, things like that. And then there are prescribed actions and basically each prayer cycles through a cycle of standing, oftentimes putting one’s arms up, bending halfway over and actually and then going down on your knees and doing a full prostration, touching your forehead to the ground. So you can see in the picture below me the men doing their prayers. That’s what they’re doing. They’re there at a moment in that prayer when they fully go down on the ground and they touch their foreheads to to the ground. And then it cycles through a couple of cycles of those those actions. There’s something else I was going to say about that. Oh, just a reminder that on the Islam YouTube playlist, there are videos of one of the afternoon prayers. You can see what it looks like and sounds like, and it has English, English translations of the words that are being spoken during that prayer. So each of them are these sort of prescribed set words and actions. Also the full prostration part of it. That’s that’s one of the reasons why you may have seen in Islam. A lot of people have a prayer rug. It’s sort of a personal rug that people will take with them if they need to do their prayers in a place other than the mosque or their homes. And it’s to make sure that the ground that they’re doing their prayers on is clean because you actually get down on your knees and touch your face to the ground. So it’s important to have a clean, you know, a clean surface on which to do that. Muslims, of course, do engage in that more sort of intimate one on one free style prayer. And oftentimes that’s done after the daily prayer. So you have your your daily prayer, which is the set words and actions. And then afterwards that can oftentimes be followed by sort of that more personal devotional moment with God. So five times a day, the chimes change slightly each day. Forgot to mention that’s why there’s also a prayer call or a call to prayer, which there’s also a video in the YouTube Islam playlist. You can listen to a call to prayer because the prayer times change slightly each day before, you know, everybody had cell phones and apps and all this sort of stuff. Of course, it was hard to know exactly when the prayer times would be. So in a in a Muslim area where there were mosques and majority Muslims, there would be a call to prayer. So someone in the community would know when the prayer times were really based on the movement of the sun. And they would then call everyone to prayer, let everyone know that this is now the time to come and pray. This is actually why mosques traditionally have what’s called a minaret, which is a tall, thin tower going up very high past the sort of major dome over the major sanctuary area of a mosque is because the individual who would do the call to prayer, who’s called the muezzin, would go up the stairs. And he would call the calls to prayer, right, so that a lot of people could hear him to let him let them know the calls to prayer also have set words to basically start with saying God is great, God is greater. You know, come come to pray. Muhammad is the messenger of God. It also usually has the Shahada woven into it. But it starts with God is great. Allah Akbar. Referring to the fact that whatever you’re doing right now, you know, God is greater, God is more important to stop what you’re doing and come to pray. So that’s why there are these calls to prayer. The words are standardized throughout the work world. What words are said in the calls to prayer? But every sort of culture community country has a slightly different like style in terms of how the what what the calls to sound like. But it is it’s like a song. It’s very melodic. There are people who are trained in how to do the calls to prayer and and they can be very beautiful, just like the recitations of the Koran. As you say, there are there are definitely still some mosques that have a muezzin actually go up into the minaret. But that’s not that common anymore because, you know, it doesn’t actually bring the sound that far. So what’s more typical today is that a mosque will have a set of speakers up in the in the minaret and then the muezzin or recording of a mosque in will play during the calls to prayer. But so if you you know, if you live anywhere near a mosque, you can still hear the calls to prayer happening each day. So those those calls to prayer still broadcasted to the community. So people here in the surrounding area and know that it’s time to come and pray. The other last couple of things about the daily prayers is that you’re supposed to be oriented towards Mecca. So wherever you are doing your prayer, you’re supposed to physically, like, face towards Mecca. So wherever you are in the world, wherever the shortest distance is between you and Mecca, you’re supposed to know which where that is like, which direction it is, you know, so like, OK, if I’m in Southern California, you know, the closest way to Mecca is, you know, is east. So I know to face something like that and it can change wherever you are in the world. Right. Not everyone is facing the same direction, but everyone is facing towards Mecca. Right. Technically, everyone is facing towards the Kaaba in Mecca, which is the most sacred site in Islam and is the first house of worship built to honor God, that Muslims believe the the plan of it was actually dictated by God, to Abraham and Ishmael. So everyone is worshipping the Kaaba. Right. Or oriented towards the Kaaba. It as they worship God, as they pray to God, because that’s the most sacred site in the world. Also, it is encouraged that if it’s possible that Muslims should pray at a mosque, it’s not required. But Muslims should pray at a mosque if they are able to. So mosques are typically open all day and people will come for each of the daily prayers or for whatever daily prayers they’re able to come for. The ease of it just it kind of depends on where you live in Muslim countries, Muslim cultures, they can be many, many, many mosques so that people don’t have to travel that far. And the mosques can get very crowded at each of the daily prayers because it is encouraged that if it’s something that’s possible for you, you should try to do your prayers at the mosque as much as you can. The only requirement is that males, Muslim males pray at the mosque on Fridays, which we’ll talk about in the next video lecture. And when you go into a mosque to do your prayer, you are supposed to go right next to whoever the last person was who came into the mosque. So you can see in the picture below me here, right, that the gentlemen who are praying there right next to each other right there, not just kind of spread out willy nilly, you know, to have their own personal space that is not allowed in a prayer setting in Islam. So if you go into a mosque, the first thing that you’ll probably notice is that there are no chairs or pews or seats, something like that. It’s usually just an open space that has carpeted a carpeted floor. And that is to you know, that is to accommodate people doing their prayers. Oftentimes on the floor, they’ll have little like a design on the rug with that kind of shows you where a prayer spot is. Right, to kind of make the spacing a little bit easier for people. So kind of within the larger rug, you can kind of go to your personal prayer rug area, but they’re all right next to each other. So the idea is that if you went into a mosque to pray and there’s a big open space, but there’s maybe like five people that are already there to do their prayers. You can’t just spread out and sit at the back, you have to go right next to the last person who came in so that your shoulders are virtually touching because prayers are supposed to be done shoulder to shoulder. That’s one of the reasons why in mosques, men and women are segregated from each other. There’s a men’s section in a women’s section. The idea being that because the prayers are done so up close and personal, that it would be distracting for people to pray so close to to someone of a different gender. Right. And especially with the full prostrations that it might not be appropriate to be that close to that body, part of the other gender. So. So, yeah. So they’re all done in the same direction in the mosque, if possible, and they’re all done basically shoulder to shoulder. The idea behind that is it’s supposed to be creating a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood or equality between people. We are one community praying together. We don’t just kind of spread out into our own separate prayer moments with God. We are all praying together and there’s usually always a prayer leader and imam or someone else in the community who leads the prayer and will be the one who recites some of the words. And then people follow along either vocally or sort of internally, silently with those words. So those that’s salaat, the five daily prayers to perform the five daily prayers each day. The third pillar is the cot. The cot is the giving of charity. So giving part of your your money, your wealth to the poor. Mohammed was very concerned with the poor and the vulnerable in Arabian society. So he he would always sort of make it a point to try to protect people that didn’t have didn’t have the best protection in that society or were considered more vulnerable in that society. So the zakat is is one of the pillars of Islam that that God requires of Muslims. And traditionally. So zakat, you could say just in general, is to give part of your money, what you can afford to support the poor and the needy and your community. Traditionally, there are very specific instructions on how to do your zakat and how much to pay. Traditionally, it’s done once a year and it is supposed to be 2.5 percent of your assets, basically 2.5 percent of everything that you own over and above what is, you know, what is necessary for you to live. So there is sort of this whole, like, science and kind of in the same way that people do their taxes. And there’s all these different regulations about finding different amounts, you know, a set amount of money for certain things. The same is true for Zakat because it’s supposed to be two point five percent really of your excess wealth or your excess value. Any money that you have earned, any money that you have saved over the course of the year that you haven’t used, you’re supposed to calculate 2.5 percent of that and donate it to the poor. So, as I said, there’s you know, there’s lots of like specific regulations on how exactly to calculate that amount, because there’s things like, you know, if you own multiple houses, you know, you have to pay, you have to pay Zakat on your additional homes, but not on the home that you live in because that’s considered a necessity. You know, if you own, you know, whatever is in your income or sorry, whatever is in your savings account, but not necessarily in other, you know, checking or accounts or something like that. Right. Because it’s supposed to be two point five percent. But on what you have, that is more than what you need. Right. And traditionally, as I said, it’s done once a year, although I would say much more common today is for Muslims to simply keep that number in mind as a general guideline and then but then to just pay. There’s a lot to do. There’s a cost throughout the year as they can and, you know, to give to give, like, roughly that corresponding amount of money when they can write in the same way that traditionally in Christianity, you’re supposed to tithe and supposed to be 10 percent of your income each year. A lot of people don’t necessarily exactly calculate out that amount, but keep it in mind as a general guideline and try to donate around that amount on a on a regular basis instead of just like once a year. So the court functions and in a very similar way in Islam. The fourth pillar is Ramadan, the month of Ramadan, and Saloom is the act of fasting. So storm is the action of fasting that you perform during the month of Ramadan. So many of you also might be familiar with with the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. When Ramadan happens, changes a little bit each year, according to the Western Gregorian calendar. And that’s because it’s. Based on a lunar cycle, a lunar year, so Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. It’s a 30 day month. And during Ramadan, Muslims are supposed to fast from sunrise to sunset. So they cannot eat, they cannot eat during the daylight hours. So typically, Muslims will get a very early in the morning and they will have a large breakfast before the sun rises right. When it’s still dark out. Make sure that they eat and they drink a good amount of food to last them for, you know, blossom throughout the day, although that doesn’t mean that they don’t get hungry during the day and then they have to fast until sunset. So they’re not allowed to eat or drink again until after the sun sets and the daylight fast is a true fast. So Muslims are not allowed to eat food during that time. They’re not allowed to drink anything, even water. So no liquids. They’re also not allowed to chew gum, smoke cigarettes or engage in sexual intercourse. So all of those, you know, sort of indulgences you could say are completely off limits during the daylight hours. So it’s it’s a month when, you know, your schedule changes drastically because you tend to get up very early in the morning. You Muslims also tend to stay up much later at night during Ramadan because really every evening, right after sunset, you do your your sunset prayer and then you you engage in what’s called an after meal. It’s the meal to break the fast. And of course, Muslims are very, very hungry. They’ve been they’ve been fasting all day. So oftentimes dinners during Ramadan are big affairs because people have been cooking a lot of food. You know, they know that they’re going to eat a lot of food. So they tend to be you know, people tend to invite their friends and family over. So most, like a lot of evenings during Ramadan, tend to be get togethers. They tend to be very festive. They tend to be liked like dinner parties, family reunions. So because it’s a lot of people who are very hungry, eating a lot, a lot of food, and they want to kind of enjoy, you know, enjoy the time of year. Yeah. So you you tend to stay up very late at night, wake up very early in the morning, tend to stay up late at night. And in countries and cultures that are majority Muslim, you oftentimes rest during the day because you’re not getting as much sleep at night, staying up late, waking up early in the morning. So in Muslim countries, actually, most businesses and schools only have half days during the entire month of Ramadan, like businesses closed down, schools closed down at around noon, because the understanding is that by about midday, you’re very tired if you’ve been fasting since sunrise. And so oftentimes people will go home and they’ll nap. They’ll take a rest because they’re kind of out of you know, they’re out of fuel. They’re out of energy for the day. And then you just kind of take it easy physically until after sunset and you eat again. Of course, Muslims who live in non-Muslim countries, non-Muslim cultures, it makes it a lot harder to, you know, to to engage in Ramadan because there’s no there’s not any sort of accommodations to people who are fasting like that, like having, you know, having things closed down earlier so people can rest in the afternoon. And the purpose of the fast is twofold. Right. So the the first reason that Muslims fast during this time is, I would say the basic reason that many religious people fast right. Fast occur in all different religious traditions around the world. And the idea is that if I can learn how to sort of conquer my physical needs, my physical desires of what my body wants, like food and water and things like that, I can sort of open myself up to concentrate on the spiritual right. I can control my physical needs and wants so I can focus more so on my spiritual needs and wants. Right. So it’s sort of seen as facilitating understanding of God, experience of God, and sort of growing in one’s spirituality. The second reason is connected to the court, actually. The second reason is that in in Islam, the understanding is and you know, that’s true for all people, right. That if you don’t know what it’s like to actually go hungry, if you don’t know what hunger really feels like, you’re not going to be as empathetic or as charitable towards the poor in your own community because you don’t really understand. You don’t really understand how difficult that is. So Ramadan, the fasting during Ramadan, is also meant to create empathy and solidarity with the poor, that this is what it feels like to be poor, to not have enough money to, you know, to purchase the amount of food that you need. So if you know intimately the experience of being hungry and how difficult that is, you’re much more likely to. Be more charitable, more giving, more understanding the next time you can donate to the poor, the next time you see someone in your community who doesn’t have enough to cover their basic necessities. So it’s also supposed to create empathy, compassion and charitable, a charitable attitude towards the poor in one’s own community. And something else that’s important to know about that Ramadan is that it is it’s a holy month, the not the month of Ramadan. The ninth month is the month in which Ramadan happens because it’s believed to be the month in which Muhammad began to receive the revelations. So that’s why Ramadan happens at that specific time, because it’s the time that the revelations that compose the Koran began to be handed down to Mohammed. So it’s a holy month. So another aspect of Ramadan is that Muslims really do try to focus on their religion, to focus on their spiritual development, spiritual progression during that month. So you really try to focus on really just being the best you know, the best person you can be, the best Muslim. You can be really trying to be kind and compassionate and giving and all these sorts of stuff to really follow the five pillars. You know, maybe if you let some of your daily prayer slide at other times, you’re going to be very focused on that during Ramadan. Right. To really be the best person and the best Muslim you can be. Oftentimes Muslims also. It’s traditional to read through the entire Koran during the month of Ramadan. So Muslims will divide up the Koran into 30 different sections. And then each day they’ll read that section of the Koran so that at least every year they’re there reading through the entire Koran at least once. So it’s also a time to just sort of really focus, focus on spirituality, focus on your religion, focus on being the person in the Muslim that you wish you were all during the year. But sometimes you fall short of being. And then the last pillar is the Hajj, which is the pilgrimage to Mecca. So Muslims are required if they are. Oh, one more thing I should say about fasting. You are only required to fast if you are physically able to do so. So children are excused from fasting, the elderly are excused from fasting, pregnant women are excused from fasting. Or if you have any reason that you know medically that you can’t physically fast, you’re excused from fasting. You can do other things to sort of make that up or sort of show your devotion in other ways. Sorry, I just forgot to mention that. So the Hajj, you’re required to go if you are physically and financially able to. So every Muslim is required once in their life to travel to Mecca for the Hajj, which is the pilgrimage to Mecca. If you are physically and financially able to the understanding being that Hajj is actually quite physically demanding, it’s not just like, oh, I’m going to book a ticket, go to Mecca, go see the sights, you know, have a vacation. The Hajj is several days long. It happens once a year. So going to Mecca at any other time is not considered performing the Hajj. Performing the Hajj is going during Hajj season. The Hajj takes about four to five days to complete. And you have to do certain actions, certain activities in order to complete the entire Hajj. And because he is so popular. Right, so many people go and it is in Mecca, it is in Saudi Arabia. So depending on the time of year, it can be very hot. So a lot and a lot of these actions to perform these actions for the Hajj, it requires being in large crowds, standing for long periods of time, being in the hot sun, which is something that not everyone can physically handle, especially the elderly, things like that. So so you have to be physically able to do the Hajj in order to, you know, to be required. So definitely not every Muslim performs the Hajj. Every Muslim wants to perform the Hajj. But there are definitely certain reasons that prevent some Muslims from ever doing it so that you have to be physically able to sort of meet the physical demands of performing Hajj. And you have to be financially able to. So there’s an understanding that not everyone can afford to go on Hajj, because depending on where in the world you live, it could be very expensive to travel to Saudi Arabia, to travel to Mecca, you know, to buy that plane ticket or, you know, rent that car. However it is you know, you can you can get to Mecca once you get to Mecca for the Hajj. There are very, very reasonable accommodations, right. Every up to very, very expensive accommodations. But it is important to know that the Hajj is definitely it’s controlled, monitored and subsidised by the Saudi Arabian government. So for people who don’t have a lot of money, as long as they can get to Mecca, there are. Very reasonable accommodations for people to stay, to be able to to afford to do hodgett, not that high of a cost, usually involves staying like in a tent with lots of other people, write very basic food, things like that. But they do try to make it affordable. They try to make it accessible for the most amount of people. But you’re required to perform Hajj once in your life if you are physically and financially able to do so. It happens once a year. As I mentioned, you actually have to apply to go on Hajj. So it is controlled by the Saudi Arabian government. So every year people apply to the government in Saudi Arabia to be able to go on Hajj. So you have to be accepted and you have to be issued a Hajj visa. Only Muslims are allowed to go on Hajj. So if you’re not a Muslim, you’re not allowed to to join in on the Hajj. And basically, you have to write a letter. You have to write a letter to the Saudi Arabian government explaining why it’s important for you to go on Hajj that year. Right. So, you know, whether it’s you know, this is the year I can afford it, I got a bonus at work so I can afford doing this right now. I don’t know, in the future or, you know, I just got married. We’re thinking of starting a family. I would really like to go this year because I know that once we start having kids, it’s going to be harder or I’m, you know, 70 years old, 80 years old. I’ve never been on Hajj. I would like to go this year before I’m unable to physically do it, something like that, you know, but that’s not everybody’s situation. Some people some people love Hajj. I mean, they want to just do it as many times as possible. Right. So some people just, you know, yes, I’ve been on Hajj five times before, but I’d love to come back this year. And the idea of that is so that the Saudi Arabian government can give precedence to people who this is a really important year for them to go because they might not be able to go again in the future. They might not be able to go for a very long time. So the government is supposed to give precedence to people who have never been on Hajj and the government decides how many Hajj issues to visa, I mean, how many Hajj visas to issue. But millions of people go on Hajj each year. So definitely each year there are people who are going for the first time the last time. But there are people who go many, many, many times in their lives because they can afford to. And they love the experience. Heart-rending of what other details about Hajj? As I said, it’s several days long. It requires several different activities. One of them is circling the Kaaba. So you actually go into the what’s called the Grand Mosque, which is the mosque that surrounds the Kaaba. And you sock’em a