Miss Buddha (110 page)

These additional formal and informal prayers
give expression to the primary function of prayer in Islam:
personal communication with God for the purpose of maintaining the
abiding presence of the divine in the personal lives of
Muslims.

The more formal aspects of
prayer also serve to provide a
disciplined
rhythm
that structures the day and fosters
a sense of community and shared identity among Muslims.

Now, a Buddhist would look at these
regimented rituals of worship and see the long shadows cast by
those innumerable rituals that form the core of the Hindu
religion.

Man does seem to love ritual—feeling, more
often than not, that by going through these prescribed motions duty
has been served, reverence has been paid, prayers delivered, and
future happiness guaranteed.

Ah, that it were so.

Almsgiving

The third pillar is
zakat
, or almsgiving. A
religious obligation, zakat is also considered an expression of
devotion to God, representing as it does the act of providing for
the poor and a means for the Muslim to purify his or her wealth,
and so attain salvation.

The Qur’an, along with
other Islamic traditions, stresses charity and constantly reminds
Muslims of their moral obligation to the poor, orphans, and widows.
These references, however, distinguish between general, voluntary
charity (or
sadaqa
) and zakat, the
obligatory
charge on the money or produce of
Muslims.

While the meaning of terms has been open to
different interpretations, the Qur’an regularly refers to zakat,
and also identifies specific ways in which this tax can be
spent.

Such specific uses include spending zakat on
the poor and the needy, spending it on those who collect and
distribute zakat, spending it on those whom Muslims hope to win
over and convert to Islam, on travelers, on the ransom of captives,
to relieve those who are burdened with debts, and spending it on
the cause of God (which, of course, in turn is wide-open to
interpretation).

The Qur’an provides less-than-detailed
information about what money or produce are subject to the zakat
tax and what is not, nor does it provide details of the precise
share of income or property that should be paid as zakat. Rather,
these determinations are provided in the traditions of the prophet
Muhammad himself and have since been the subject of elaborate
discussions among Muslim jurists—as would any subject this
intimately involved with one of man’s favorites obsessions:
Money.

For example, a consensus today prescribes
that one-fortieth of the assets accumulated during the year
(including gold, silver, and money) is payable at the end of the
year, while one-tenth of the harvest of the land or date trees is
payable at harvest time.

On the other hand, cattle, camels, and other
domestic animals are subject to a more complex taxation system that
depends on the animals in question, their age, the numbers
involved, and whether they are freely grazing.

As for trade, traditional zakat laws do not
cover this, but commercial taxes have been imposed by various
Muslim governments throughout history.

Fasting

The fourth pillar of Islam
is
sawm
, or
fasting.

The Qur’an prescribes
fasting during the month of Ramadan, the 9
^th
month of the 12-month Islamic
lunar year, during which the first revelation of the Qur’an is said
to have occurred.

During this sacred month, Muslims must fast
from daybreak to sunset by refraining not only from eating,
drinking, but also from sexual intercourse. Menstruating women,
travelers, and sick people are exempted from fasting but have to
make up the days they miss at a later date.

The intention of this fast is to introduce
physical and spiritual discipline, which should serve to remind the
rich of the misfortunes of the poor, and which should foster,
through this act of worship, a sense of solidarity and mutual care
among Muslims of all social backgrounds.

Most Muslims also engage in acts of worship
beyond the ordinary during Ramadan, such as voluntary night prayer,
reading sections from the Qur’an, and paying voluntary charity to
the poor.

Muslims may even (and
mostly do) choose to wake before daybreak to eat a meal that will
sustain them until sunset. Once the fasting is over, the holiday of
breaking the fast,
‘id
al-fitr
, begins, lasting for three
days.

During the rest of the year, fasting can be
required as a compensation for various offenses and violations of
the law.

Pilgrimage to Mecca

The fifth and final pillar
requires that Muslims who have the physical and financial ability
should perform the pilgrimage, or
hajj
, to Mecca at least once in a
lifetime.

The hajj takes place during
the 12
^th
lunar month of the year, known as
Dhu
al-Hijja
, and it involves a set and
detailed sequence of rituals that are practiced over the span of
several days.

These rituals take place in Mecca and its
surroundings and their primary focus is a cubical structure called
the Kaaba—or the House of God, which, according to Islamic
tradition was built at God’s command by the prophet Ibrahim—that
would be Abraham of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles—and his son
Ismail.

The Qur’an gives detailed descriptions of
these rituals and portrays many of them as reenactments of the
activities undertaken by Ibrahim and Ismail while building the
Kaaba.

Set into one corner of the Kaaba is the
sacred Black Stone, which, according to one Islamic tradition, was
given to Ibrahim by the angel Gabriel.

Another Islamic tradition tells that this
stone was first set in place by Adam.

During this pilgrimage to Mecca, before
returning home, most Muslims also visit Medina, the home of the
Prophet’s tomb. Many Muslims pilgrims also travel to Jerusalem,
which is the third sacred city for Islam.

The Mosque

The mosque is the physical manifestation of
the public presence of Muslims and serves as a point of convergence
for Islamic social and intellectual activity.

The Arabic word for mosque
is
masjid
, which
means a “place of prostration” (before God). Mosques are mentioned
in the Qur’an, and the earliest model for a mosque was the
residence that the prophet Muhammad built when he moved to
Medina.

This first mosque was simply an enclosure
marked as a special place of worship. A small part of this compound
was sectioned off to house the Prophet and his family, while the
remaining space was left open as a place for Muslims to pray.

Although later mosques developed into
complex architectural structures built in diverse styles, the one
requirement of all mosques continues to be based on the earliest
model: a designation of space for the purpose of prayer.

These early mosques served an equally
important function, a function that mosques continue to serve to
this day: as a place where Muslims foster their collective identity
through prayer and attend to common concerns.

Normally, a Muslim city has numerous mosques
but only a few of these would serve as congregational or Friday
mosques where the obligatory Friday noon prayers are performed.

As Islam began to spread outside Arabia,
Islamic architecture was, understandably, influenced by the various
architectural styles of the conquered lands, leading to
construction of both simple and monumental mosques of striking
beauty in cities of the Islamic world.

However, despite the
influence of diverse civilizations, certain features became
characteristic of most and thus serve to distinguish them from the
sacred spaces of other religions and cultures, the most important
of which is that a mosque
must be oriented
toward Mecca
.

Many mosques also have separate sections for
women.

Most also have one or more minarets, or
towers, from which the muezzin calls Muslims to prayer five times a
day. In addition to this obvious functional use, these minarets
have also become distinguishing elements of mosque architecture,
and in large mosques in particular minarets have the architectural
effect of tempering the size and splendor of the dome by conveying
the elevation of divinity above the pretensions of human
grandeur.

The mosque is not a symbolic microcosm of
the universe, as are some places of worship in other religions;
rather, the mosque is always built in alignment with and as a
connection to Mecca, the ultimate home of Muslim worship that
metaphorically forms the center of all mosques.

The God of Islam

The Qur’an, and further elaborations of
Islamic doctrine, not only stress the oneness, but also the
uniqueness, the transcendence, and utter otherness of God. As such,
God is different from anything that the human senses can perceive
or that the human mind can even imagine.

The God of Islam encompasses all creation,
though no mind can fully encompass or grasp Him. God, however, is
manifest through his creation, and through honest reflection man
can discern the wisdom and power required to create a universe such
as ours.

Because of God’s oneness,
otherness, and his transcending all human experience and knowledge,
Islamic law
forbids representations of
God
.

Islamic law also forbids representations of
the prophets—including, obviously, and famously, Muhammad. Nor,
among some branches of Islam, can representations of human beings
be made.

As a result of this belief, Islamic art came
to excel in a variety of decorative patterns including leaf shapes
later stylized as arabesques, and Arabic script.

In modern times the restrictions on creating
images of people have been considerably relaxed, but any attitude
of worship toward images and icons is strictly forbidden in
Islam.

In several modern societies, the
proscription against any form of pictorial representation of the
prophets is viewed as a restriction upon freedom of speech and
various publications and other outlets have published such images
despite the often violent protests staged by local (and worldwide)
Muslims as a result.

Commercial interests, however—since money is
at stake—shows more consideration for these proscriptions, as
illustrated by the online catalog of a large retailer, whose Arabic
versions includes no representation of humans (a gargantuan
retouching effort).

Islamic Monotheism

Even before the advent of Muhammad, many
Arabs already believed in a supreme, all-powerful God who was
responsible for creation. However, they also believed in a host of
lesser gods.

The arrival of Islam put an end to the
subordinate gods and the Arab concept of the Deity was purged of
elements of polytheism and turned into an uncompromising belief in
one God, i.e., monotheism.

Whether truly the case or not, current
Islamic view holds that all Arabs before Muhammad were ignorant of
God, and that Islam brought about a complete break from earlier
Arab concepts of God and thus brought about a radical
transformation in Arab belief about God.

Islamic doctrine also maintains that Islam’s
monotheism carries on that of Judaism and Christianity; however,
the Qur’an stresses the distinctions between Islam and those other
two monotheistic religions; for according to Islamic belief, both
Moses and Jesus, like others before them—such as Abraham—were
prophets commissioned by God to preach the essential and eternal
message of Islam.

They were all forerunners of Muhammad, the
final, the holiest, the ultimate prophet

While the legal codes introduced by Moses
and Jesus—that is, the Ten Commandments and the Christian
Gospels—took different forms than the Qur’an, according to Islamic
understanding (at the level of doctrine) they are in fact the same
teaching.

By Islamic lore, the
recipients of scriptures are called the
people of the book
or the
scriptured
people. Like
the Jews and the Christians before them, the Muslims became
scriptured when God (via Archangel Gabriel) revealed his word to
them through (the last, and ultimate) prophet: when God revealed
the Qur’an to the Muhammad, and in the process commanded him to
preach it to his people and later to all humanity (and never to
take “no” for an answer).

Although Muslims (by tradition) believe that
the original messages of Judaism and Christianity were indeed
handed down by God, they also hold that both the Jews and the
Christians eventually distorted God’s word.

The self-assigned mission of Islam,
therefore, has been—and to this day continues to be—to restore what
Muslims believe is the original, pure, and unadulterated
monotheistic teaching and to supplant the older (and now perverted)
legal codes of the Hebrew and Christian traditions with the newer
(purer) Islamic code of law that corresponds to the evolving
conditions of human societies.

Accordingly, Islamic traditions maintain
that Jesus was a prophet whose revealed book was the Christian New
Testament; later, however, Christians distorted the original
scripture and inserted into it the claim that Jesus was the son of
God.

Muslims also maintain that the strict laws
communicated by Moses in the Hebrew Bible were appropriate for
their time. Later, however, Jesus—in a breakdown of moral
integrity—introduced a code of behavior that stressed spirituality
rather than ritual and law.