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

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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 ambulate around the Kaaba seven times. There are other actions like you have to go out in the desert, you see the like the mountain or the hillside where Muhammad is supposed to have given his final farewell. You go out into the desert and you see the area that that Muslims believe is where Hagar and Ishmael were shown as well by the Angel Gabriel. So the different activities have to do with certain stories in the Koran or in the life of Muhammad and where they actually happened around Mecca. And then you perform certain actions at each of those those sites or locations. But it is pretty I mean, it’s pretty hectic because the government has to make sure that millions of people are able to cycle through these activities. So there’s a lot of planning. There’s a lot of just standing around and very crowded areas in the hot sun. So it can be very taxing. Also during something interesting about the Hajj is that when Muslims go, they’re supposed to all wear the same clothing. They’re all supposed to just wear basically a white piece of cloth or two white pieces of cloth so that everyone looks the same. And the ideal of Hajj, it’s not maybe perfectly carried out, but the ideal of hajjis that everyone is supposed to be equal during that time. Everyone is wearing the same clothing, everyone ideally staying at similar types of accommodations and that everyone is equal during the Hajj, that there’s not supposed to be sort of very explicit markers of wealth or poverty or something like that. But it’s sort of supposed to be like a great equalizer. Everyone is equal before God. Everyone is equal when they’re performing the Hajj. So that’s the last the last of the five pillars that Muslims are supposed to perform at least once in their lives. Not every Muslim does. And some Muslims do the Hajj many times. OK, this is getting very long. So I’m going to stop it here. And next, we’ll talk about some other rituals in Islam. All right, so in this video lecture, we’re going to continue talking about some Muslim rituals that are done in different times, different intervals, time intervals throughout the year or one’s lifetime. The first one that I have here, just on a daily basis, of course, Muslims engage in prayer. The five daily prayers each day, which we already talked at length about. So I won’t say any more about that. Right. In the first ritual video lecture, I went over prayer, the five daily prayers in Islam and how they are part of the five pillars in Islam. So every day, traditionally, Muslims pray five times a day on a weekly basis. Muslims will typically go to a mosque service on the holy day of the week in Islam, which is Friday. So we’ve gone through three religious traditions that have a holy day of the week. Judaism is Friday, sunset to Saturday sunset. Christianity is Sunday and Islam is Friday. The reason that it’s Friday is because in in the Koran as well as that, there’s discussions about how Friday, Friday was a day where a lot of important things happened. So the belief in Islam is actually that God created Adam created the first human being on a Friday, and that when the sort of the last time comes the day of judgment comes, that will also be on a Friday. And there’s been sort of other there’s other stories in the Koran that that are supposed to have happened on a Friday. So Friday is considered an especially blessed day, a holy day. So there’s not necessarily the tradition of strict rest like there is in Judaism. But Friday is a day that is supposed to be dedicated to spirituality, to sort of engagement with family and religion and spirituality. But really the centerpiece of the day of what Muslims do on Friday is attending a Friday prayer service. So we talked last time about the prayers and that in general, it’s encouraged that Muslim men and women go to the mosque to pray whenever possible, that having that communal prayer, that prayer experience with others is very important. But Muslims don’t have to go to a mosque in order to do their prayers, but it’s encouraged to do so if that’s possible. But there is a requirement in Islam that Muslim males are required to go to to a mosque for the Friday midday prayer service. So the one that happens right around noon. So that has become sort of the main service of the week. Right. You can go. Mosques are open all day, every day, right from the time of the first prayer to the last prayer so that Muslims can, whenever possible, go to the mosque to do their their five daily prayers. But mosques will have a larger, more extended service for the Friday midday prayer. And sometimes mosques have one service on actually our local mosque in San Diego, the Islamic center. It’s it’s so popular that they actually have two services on a Friday. So there could be one, you know, one sort of central Friday, midday prayer service or there could be two, depending on how many people attend that particular mosque. So what happens is that during the Friday, the Friday midday prayer service. Right. It’s usually much more you know, it’s much more crowded. You can go to the mosque for any prayer time. But of course, Friday midday prayer service is the one that’s most heavily attended. So there’s lots and lots of people there. And the prayer will actually be preceded by a talk, by a lecture or a sermon that’s given by either an imam mosque mosque. Most mosques have an imam or religious leader that that are in charge of them. But it’s not a requirement that the talk is given by the mom. And oftentimes the talk can be given by someone else in the community who’s respected or, you know, maybe the imam ask someone to speak on a particular topic that they know that individual that individual knows a lot about. So for the Friday midday service, there’ll be a talk of less in a sermon followed by the midday prayer. So that’s that’s the holy day of the week in Islam on a yearly basis. There are a couple of important holidays that are celebrated throughout the year. Ramadan, we already talked about in terms of how fasting during Ramadan is one of the five pillars. So Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar and the fasting occurs from sunrise to sunset on each day. But after the 30th day, there is a holiday that is considered sort of the ultimate breaking of the fast right. Every evening during Ramadan, you break the fast by eating again after sunset and during the sunset prayer. And then then at the end of the 30 day month, there’s a three day holiday called Eid, all fitter. Adolf Hitler is the sort of the ultimate breaking of the fast, and it’s sort of a celebration of the end of Ramadan. They’re celebrating the completion, another year of successful, successful Ramadan, Ramadan month, Ramadan season. So there’s a big, big three day holiday that happens at the end of that. And Adolf Hitler is usually celebrated by the the first day, the morning of the first day. And actually for each of the days, there’s mourning, mourning mosque services. So just like Muslims would go to their local mosque for a Friday midday prayer service, they would also during Adolf Hitler, especially on the first day. But you can also go on the other days would attend a mosque service for the morning prayer. So, you know, sort of a there’s the first day of Adolf Hitler. There’s a morning prayer service that’s very heavily attended. Do your prayers together and sort of, you know, celebrate the official ending, because that’s sort of the official ending of Ramadan, because it’s the beginning of the first day after Ramadan when you can eat during the day. And then really for the rest of the three days, it’s just there’s a lot of eating. There’s a lot of eating, eating like sweets and special foods, getting together with family and friends and really just enjoying large meals with family and friends, getting together and just sort of celebrating that, you know, you can eat during the daylight hours and to sort of celebrate and feel thankful and gratitude for completing another another year’s Ramadan fasting. The next holiday that I have here is allowed to eat all her celebrates two different things. It’s the close of the pilgrimage month or the Hajj month sort of it. So it comes at the end of Hajj. So remember, we talked about Hajj already, but in order to successfully complete the Hajj, I remember he said you can’t just go to Mecca at any time, you know, willy nilly and just go see these sites. There’s a particular time each year when the Hajj happens and you have to go during that time with everybody else for it to be considered the Hajj. So Etel Ardha celebrates the end of the Hajj. So in one sense, it’s sort of celebrating the Hajj experience, welcoming home Haji’s people who have completed the Hajj. But it also is a commemoration of a story in the Koran about when Abraham almost sacrifices his son Ishmael. And note the difference there. Right, because we’ve talked a lot about the differences between the Torah and the Koran in the Torah. It is Abraham’s son, Isaac. Wait, is that right? Was taken there like that’s the right one, right. Could be confusing many names, but in in the Torah, it is a different it is a different son that Abraham is supposed to is supposed to sacrifice. And I’m blanking on the name now. I forget if it’s Isaac or Jacob, I’m blanking on the name. But I will check on that. I’ll check on that. But just to know that in the Torah. Right, it is his second son, his son with his wife Sarah, that Abraham almost sacrifices. Right. The story in the Torah as well as the Koran is that Abraham has a son. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham is willing to in obedience to God. But right before the sacrifice happens, God actually replaces replaces the son with a lamb. So in the Koranic version of the story, it is Abraham’s son, Ishmael, that his first son, Ishmael with Hagar, that he almost sacrifices. So in the story right when Abraham is about to to do the sacrifice, to commit the sacrifice, God stops him and replaces tells Abraham that actually to replace his son with a lamb so translations can be different, a lamb, a sheep, a goat, and then to sacrifice that animal and eat and share the food from the sacrifice of that animal. So Eedle also commemorates this story in the Koran. And so how it’s how it celebrates also a three day holiday, how it’s celebrated is that there is a meal in which a goat, sheep or a lamb is killed and then the food is eaten, the meat is eaten. So it’s done in commemoration of that story. And it’s also supposed to be a reminder of sharing the idea, being that not everyone can necessarily afford to purchase an entire animal. If you’ve ever gone to some of those fancy butcher shops where you can actually buy like an entire town or pig or goat or something like that, it’s very expensive. It’s very expensive to do that. So not everyone can necessarily afford to purchase an entire animal and to purchase all the meat, all the meat from that animal. So what you’re supposed to do is it’s the the holiday sort of centers around this meal. But part of the meat is supposed to be shared with family and friends. So you’re not this is supposed to be sort of like a dinner that is a get together also with family and friends. So you’re sharing part of the animal with others and then also part of it is supposed to be given to the poor. So you’re also supposed to sort of share those resources with the poor in your community who cannot afford to, you know, to purchase an entire animal or to have a meal, you know, the the sort of traditional meal on that day. So in a way, it’s kind of very similar to the American tradition of Thanksgiving, right. Where a turkey is killed. And the understanding is that every, you know, every dinner, every family dinner has a turkey and they eat the whole turkey and share that with others. And then also the idea of sort of sharing, you know, getting together with family and friends for that meal, as well as sort of having that attitude of thankfulness and helping out the poor in your community as well. So a lot of similar themes actually in Idolater and Thanksgiving in America, but it’s also a three day holiday. So there’s also mourning prayer services at the mosque and multiple, you know, sort of instances of getting together with friends and family and sharing meals, but also the centerpiece of the meal with the animal, the goat, sheep or lamb that commemorates the animal that was given to Abraham by God so that he would not know in place of his son, Ishmael. And then the last one that I have here is Mullard Mollet commemorates the birthday of Muhammad. So Muhammad, of course, is is a very important figure in Islam, although he is not considered divine. He is considered just a regular human being who was chosen by God to be a prophet or a messenger of God’s word, God’s instruction. He’s definitely also seen as the most perfect human example. He’s the most ethical human being in his society. And that’s why God chose him to receive this message, to receive the revelations. So Mohammed is oftentimes described as a living Koran that he didn’t he didn’t come up with the Koran. Right. That’s very important in Islam is that Muhammad just received these revelations. He was just the vessel, right? The funnel he received the revelations spoke, the revelations to the community who then memorized them, recorded them, wrote them down and collected them into the Koran. But he’s a living Koran in the sense that he is seen as sort of the perfect example of submission to God. So who Muhammad was, the way he lived his life and the way he treated others, that is something that is emulated by all Muslims. And so he’s very much, you know, you could say respected or revered, but of course, not worshipped in the religion of Islam. So Mollet is the celebration of his birthday. And in general, it’s a very just sort of joyous and festive holiday that sort of celebrates and honors Muhammad. It’s a birthday party, right? It’s a birthday party for Muhammad. Some traditions, of course, are again getting together with friends and family, sharing food, good food, sweet treats. There’s also a tradition of telling stories about Muhammad. Right? You think of the the tradition of the Hadith that we talked about, that there is this incredibly large collection of stories about Muhammad. So oftentimes on Mollet, people will share their favorite stories about Muhammad. Right. This thing that he did or this thing that he said and in some traditions also there’s or some countries there’s also traditions of memorising and reciting poetry about Muhammad. So poetry in many different Muslim countries and cultures are also integrated into this holiday that children will memorize the memories like a song or a poem about Muhammad and then and then recite that at their school or for friends or family or something like that. So it’s really kind of an outpouring of love for Muhammad and sort of celebrating his life and who he was then in terms of the life cycle, just a couple of important, important life moments and how they are honored or celebrated in Islam. The first one is marriage. The person that I have here is marriage. The first moments in life, of course. So in Islam, there’s no there’s no ideal of celibacy. So there are no like Muslim monks or nuns or something like that. The ideal of celibacy refers to the fact that in many religious traditions, there are sort of these roles or positions carved out for people who don’t want to get married, who choose not to get married and sort of want to dedicate their lives to their religious the religious institution or to their spiritual journey. Right. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, you have the tradition of having monks or nuns, celibate individuals, but not in Islam, not in Judaism or so I’m actually just another sort of interesting parallel between the two. So when Islam really every man and woman is encouraged to get married and have a family, even imams who are the the religious leaders in both Sunni and Shia Islam, although they serve different roles. So so everyone is encouraged to get married. And actually in the Koran, there are specific instructions that are given about how a marriage is supposed to happen. What are these sort of conditions around a Muslim marriage? So in in a Muslim marriage? I mean, technically, a Muslim marriage is a contract. There is a Muslim marital contract that both the husband and the wife have to sign in the presence of an imam. And that’s that’s really what a Muslim marriage is. A Muslim wedding is the signing of this contract in the presence of an imam. And that’s all that’s required for for a Muslim marriage to take place. Of course, you know, there’s also there tends to be also, you know, a meal at a party and a celebration and stuff like that, just like in many other cultures. But really, in order to get married, that’s that’s the basic requirement is the contract is sign, of course, in our own society. When you want to get married, you do also have to sign a contract. There is a marital contract, but the difference is that in Western society, it is a civil contract. Right? It’s a secular contract. It’s something that’s published by the government. If you want to get married, you have to go down to the county clerk’s office. You have to pay 40 bucks or something. I’m trying to remember how much it was. You have to pay like 40 bucks. You get this marriage contract and then it has to be signed by whoever the person is that’s marrying you. Right. The difference is that in Islam, the contract is actually a religious document. It’s a document not issued by the state, but issued by the mosque itself. So when a Muslim gets married in the US, they have to do both. Right? They have their, you know, their California state marriage license as well as their Muslim marriage license. And really, the idea behind the contract was that actually the regulations for marriage in Islam greatly or should say, gave women much greater protection, rights and control than they had had in prison. Lambic Arabia. So in pre Islamic Arabia, marriage, of course, happened, but a woman did not have to give her consent. Right. So marriages were arranged. And basically, as long as her father, the woman’s father, gave consent for someone to marry his daughter, the consent of the woman getting married not needed. Right? As long as the father gave the consent, women were so they didn’t they didn’t have to give their consent. Men were allowed to marry as many women as they wanted to. Women did not have to give consent for their husband to marry more, more women, additional women. There’s a couple of other things. Oh, women were not allowed to to initiate divorce proceedings so a man could divorce his wife, but a wife could never divorce her husband. And if a woman inherited anything, it would go directly to her husband. Women were not allowed to to to have money. Right. To have money of their own. That was the situation in pre Islamic Arabia. Something important to understand about Islam is that it greatly strengthened the protections for women in Arabian society. So there are a lot of Koranic teachings, a lot of chronic verses about women and making sure that they are given rights and are protected in that society. So in Islam, there are differences, right? There are things that are different. When Islam came around, the revelations required that a woman has to give her consent to get married. So in Islam, in order for a marriage contract to be signed, the woman has to verbally give her consent to the imam. Right. So a woman cannot be like married against her will. Polygamy is allowed, but the first wife has to give her consent for an individual, for her husband to marry another woman. And then if it goes into more wives than just to all the women have to give their consent for additional wives. Women are allowed to divorce their husbands in Islam. So the Muslim marriage contract also gave women the right to divorce their husbands. There’s different reasons. It’s not completely equal. The reasons that a man is allowed to divorce his wife is different from the reasons that a woman is allowed to divorce her husband. But it did give women the right to divorce their husbands, which they never had before. And women are allowed to keep their inheritances themselves. So under the Muslim marriage contract, if a woman inherits money from her father or from her husband after he dies, she is allowed to keep that herself. And it doesn’t have to automatically go to like a brother or an eldest son or something like that, which was the situation before Islam. So the marriage contract is important because it really did greatly strengthen the sort of independence and the rights and the protections of women in Arabian society that has continued on. So those are still the requirements that are that are given for a Muslim marriage to take place and for a Muslim marriage to to end in divorce. So divorce has always been allowed within Islam for certain reasons. It’s not allowed just for any reason. But Islam has always been allowed or sorry. Divorce has always been allowed in Islam. And then the last one that I have here are the rituals around death. So when a Muslim dies, it is important that the body is buried very quickly after death. So Islam, similar to some forms of Christianity, do not approve of cremation. So in Islam, the body has to be buried, not cremated or disposed of in any other way. It has to happen within 24 to 48 hours after the death. So the body has to be interred or buried in the ground. Very shortly after death, the male or the relatives of the deceased individual of the same gender are required to wash and prepare the body for burial. So this is something that’s that’s very important in the Muslim tradition, that when someone dies, one of their relatives and their certain sort of regulations on who it would be, sort of the most senior member of the family of the same gender of that individual has to be involved in the washing of the body, in the preparing of it for burial, which includes washing, as well as wrapping the body in a just a simple white cloth. So in Islam, all men and women are buried just wearing a white cloth or two white cloth. It’s actually the same garment that people wear when they go to Hajj. So if you remember, we talked about the Hajj and you could see everybody’s wearing white, the same thing that they wear at Hajj to create that sense of equality, that those are the same garments that are worn by the deceased. And it’s the same idea, right, that death is the great equalizer. Nobody should be sort of above someone else in status when it comes to death. So actually, in Islam, everyone is required to be buried just in that white garment. Right. Not take anything with them. And also that they’re they’re buried in sort of just a simple wooden box. So there’s no sort of like fancy, you know, fancy coffins in Islam. It’s supposed to be sort of very simplistic because death is the great equalizer. So burial should also be an equal one where you cannot have a status above anyone else. The other thing to note that’s important about a Muslim burial is actually that the head of the deceased. So wherever they’re wherever their body is buried in the cemetery, their head has to be oriented so that they’re looking towards Mecca, so that in death, in eternity, they’re sort of their gaze is always fixed upon Mecca, upon the Kaaba, the most sacred place of. The world, according to Islam, those are some of the restrictions and regulations, instructions around around the death of someone in Islam. OK, and next, we will talk about ethics. All right, so in this last video lecture, we are going to talk about some sort of trends in society and Muslim society, as well as some issues and individuals related to social justice within Islam. So I have a couple of different a couple of different things here. So I’ll try to go through them, try to go through them quickly. The first thing that’s sort of an important trend or movement to know about in Islam is something called Sufism. And Sufism is something that there can be a lot of confusion about. Basically, Sufism is a mystical orientation towards God within Islam. So Sufism is not a separate it’s not a separate denomination. So Sunnis can be Sufi, Shias can be Sufi or can engage in Sufi practices or be interested in Sufi philosophy. Basically, what Sufism is, is it is it is a movement that arose in the early Middle Ages in Turkey, and it arose as a movement that was sort of a push back, you could say a pushback against or pushback to the emphasis on Sharia law or the emphasis on legalism within Islam, as well as a comfortability with materiality. So Sufis in Turkish society at this time were they thought that sort of the the the emphasis in Islam had become too much about sort of the law code, Sharia law and how to live your life? It was too much on sort of the external or the social aspect of Islam. And they called for sort of a return to the internal, spiritual or mystical aspects of Islam, that there should be a lot more emphasis focused on on prayer, on experiencing God, on understanding God and on loving God and understanding the love of God. So so Sufis Sufi started to develop certain practices that would enhance the individual’s ability to experience God directly. Sufism is very, very much known for its connection with poetry, as well as a type of dancing, as well as a type of chanting. Those are some of the main practices that Sufism has been connected to poetry, dancing and chanting. Some of you may have heard of the poet Rumi. Rumi is a internationally known and well-loved poet that who was a Sufi as well. Rumi is the best selling poet in the US as well as in many places around the world. So oftentimes Sufism is connected with the poetry in the life of Rumi or Rumi was a Sufi himself, and he, in addition to writing an enormous corpus of of mystical poetry. That’s beautiful. You should you should go read some if you’ve never heard of Rumi. He also engaged in certain Sufi practices like the one that’s at the very top picture above me here. These are called whirling dervishes. And this is a Sufi practice that oftentimes today is kind of done more as a type of performance. But it is actually a mystical, spiritual ritual. It is a practice in which these individuals basically twirl, they spin, they whirl. So these these men and women that you can see above me, they wear a certain particular outfit and they sort of they hold their hands up. There’s different types of styles or positions, but they hold their hands up and they spin for long periods of time. There’s a particular way that you do what you have to be kind of trained in how to do it. If you’ve ever done dance, you know, you have to learn how to spin, like how to turn properly so that you don’t get super dizzy, like when to move your head and things like that. And it was it’s similar to that. Right. So that they can do it for long periods of time without becoming, like, overwhelmingly dizzy. But the idea of it is actually to enter into a trance like state where you can directly experience God. So Sufis engage in poetry. There’s lots of famous Sufi poetry that’s that’s absolutely beautiful. The whirling dervishes, they’re well known for, as well as a practice known as Zikr and Tsoukas are there chanting, chanting that sometimes can sound more like a sort of rhythmic chant and sometimes can sound more like a song or the names of God are repeated over and over again and again. Islam there in the Quran there are ninety nine names of God. So Tsoukas oftentimes are the repetition of some of these names of God. But Sufism is something that’s it’s an important movement within Islam because it really is something that sort of transcends in some ways, it transcends the diversity of Islam, whether because there are Sunni, there are Sunni Sufis there, Shia Sufis. And it’s something that sort of has these pockets of popularity throughout the Muslim world. Sometimes Sufism in certain parts of the world are not that well known. And in other parts of the Muslim. It’s much more well known and much more common, but something interesting about Sufism is that it’s been it’s definitely been sort of exported to the West. So there are a lot of either Western Muslims or Western non-Muslims who are very interested in Sufism, that have converted to Islam because they you know, they’ve dedicated their lives to the Sufi practice. And they are oftentimes even people who don’t necessarily consider themselves Muslim, but consider themselves Sufi because they believe that this sort of mystical orientation towards God, even though it’s rooted in Islam, sort of transcends all religious boundaries so that these these practices are really sort of open to anyone who wants to engage with God, no matter what religious tradition they come from. So Sufism is something that it’s not without controversy in the Muslim world. It’s important to know some people are very supportive and some people are very critical of it because it is a sort of a bypassing of authority. It’s a bypassing of sort of traditional sources of authority within the Muslim world and direct experience with God. So it’s been criticized for the same reasons that oftentimes mystical mystical practices or mystics are criticized in many different religious traditions because they are seen as sort of bypassing these institutional forms of the religion. But Sufism is something that’s become very popular in the West. There are Sufi like there are Sufi orders in California. There are places you can go and learn about Sufism, learn how to do the whirling dervish activities, you know, the twirling. So it’s kind of this really interesting bridge between between the Muslim world and the Western world or Muslim world and the non-Muslim world, that it’s been seen as the sort of mystical, mystical bridge between the two. The next bullet point that I have here is just in terms of ethnic diversity. This is something that we talked about a little bit already in terms of the reading from Malcolm X. So remember Malcolm X as someone who is American, black American man raised Christian, but in his early life, had these very difficult and confusing experiences where white American Christians would treat him terribly. He was faced with racism, bigotry, prejudice. And it’s you know, it can be especially, you know, heartbreaking, heart rending for people like Malcolm X to say, wait a minute, we’re we’re the worst part of the same religion. Just because we come from a different background or skin color is different. How is it that you think you were able to treat me like this one? Because, of course, I’m a human being as well. But secondly, we’re both Christian. We’re part of the same religion. How does that how does that religious religious brotherhood or religious family, how does that become secondary to differences in ethnicity? So it was very heartbreaking for him and very confusing for him that this religion of Christianity didn’t seem to supersede people’s already sort of entrenched racist views. So when when he’s a young man, he converts to Nation of Islam and then eventually he converts to Sunni Islam. He goes to Hajj and he experiences that the Hajj is this incredibly diverse place. There are people from all different parts of the world, all different colors of skin, all different races, ethnicities, linguistic backgrounds. But they all treat each other as one. They all treat each other as one extended family because they’re all brothers and sisters within Islam. And this is something that’s important to understand about about mosques around the world, especially in the west, right in the west. If you go to a mosque, you will probably notice that they are incredibly diverse places in terms of ethnicity, of nationality, of of languages spoken. So there’s not there’s not sort of this same, you could say, troublesome history within within Christianity in the West. Right. There’s this troublesome history of segregation within Christianity, in American Christianity, churches, the vast majority of churches, something like 80 something percent of churches in America are vast majority, one ethnicity. So the Christian religious landscape in America continues to be incredibly segregated. Right, that there are churches that are majority white churches that are majority, black churches that are majority, Latino churches that are majority Chinese, American, Korean, American. It’s a very segregated landscape.

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