I have worked with and had many muslim friends over the last couple of years but have not tried to learn anything about Islam until this past year when my sister converted. In trying to understand her move of faith I began to read everything I could on Islam and asked questions of my friends. The religion of Islam, I have found, is closer to my faith and belief in God and I find comfort and joy in sharing a faith with people who have such love for God as I do. However, the more I show an interest in Islam to my muslim friends the more uncomfortable I become with them. One young man in particular is very passionate about his faith but on several occasions he has said very unsettling things. I tried to find references to the things he has said in the Quran (things he said were in there) but came up empty handed. After a while he said in passing that he has never read the entire Quran for himself and he comes from generations of muslims. I felt a little hurt when I realized this and then when I began to ask questions of my other friends I found they too have never read the Quran or tried to understand their faith. How can they stand so firmly on their statements when they don't know if that is what the Quran may or may not contain? Is this a common occurance?
Islam Newbie
By journeyman - Posted on June 29th, 2009
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This is not an uncommon occurrence at all. In fact, it is not an issue for Muslims alone - many people of many faiths fail to read through the Scripture of their faith. As an extreme example, I recall (many, many moons ago) a trainee Anglican priest (that's an Episcopalian for my States-side readers), who was sitting a Koine Greek course with me, happily admitting that learning New Testament Greek at least meant that he was forced to read those parts of the New Testament he had not looked at before!
For Muslims also comes the desirability of reading the Qur'an in its original Arabic - a formidable task as the language is not the easiest in the world to get one's head around (and the traditional methods of its teaching are appalling from a pedagogical point of view).
The Qur'an is not an easy read - it has puzzling and odd sections that require a considerable amount of reading around to grasp their meaning. Also, given the sometimes extreme, obtuse or just plain nasty interpretations placed on the text, it is a wonder - to be frank - that so many people even start trying to read it at all.
I'm trying to understand prayer. Ablution is simple, praising God, talking to God is simple, bowing in worship is simple and understandable. But why is it so confusing to me that one must say certain things is order or exactly do some motion? And why, someone please explain to me, why not one single source of examples or how to dos on prayer are the same? (And I am not talking about rakats or different prayers) Take for example Fajr, every source I could find on Fajr showed a different setup/motion for prayer and stated something completely different to be said. At least it seemed this way from my point of view. And why must prayers be done in Arabic? God knows what we are saying, if I said something in a language other that my mother tounge I don't think those words would have the same meaning for me and isn't it important that what I am saying to God has meaning to me too otherwise it would be an empty prayer. And I can't grasp my head around the whole rakat thing. In the examples I have seen it seems it would take 20 minutes or more (mostly from all the stuff you have to say) to pray but my friends maybe 5 minutes tops. Why can't prayer to God be more simple?!?!?!?! My whole life whenever I prayed I just talked to God you know, just talking and being thankful for what God has given me. GRRRRR! HELP?
1.Differing schools of Islamic jurisprudence offer slightly differing prayer methods, and individual scholars within and outside of those schools contribute to the variations as well.
2. Casual worship has its place and its advantages, but so does formalized worship. Formalized worship helps bring together the horizontal (between humans) and vertical (between a human and God) dimensions of faith. Praying in the exact same fashion as a Nigerian, a Pakistani, or a Briton is a powerfully cohesive thing.
3. Prayer always contains what you bring to it- and usually not much more than that.
I can get with that, but is there anywhere I can go to find the simplest way? My friends don't seem to understand what I am asking for. One of them has tried to show me the proper way to pray but doesn't seem to get that fact I don't speak arabic and would like to know what it is I'm saying not just copying what he says. I live in a very small town with a mosque an hour away which my friends don't even go to because they all say it's a bit too political.
There are written instructions available with translations; short of learning Arabic, they are your best bet, I'll look some up soon. And I'm right along with you in wanting to know what is said in prayer- in the few prayer services I've led, explanations and/or translations were offered on the spot.
edit: here are written instructions and a movie. Any differences between them are perfectly acceptable, so pick one and don't sweat it if you goof up. Keep in mind that a formal prayer is a task that must be learned, like riding a bike or knitting; if you don't get it right away, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the directions or you- it means you need to practice.
http://www.quran.org/salathow.htm
http://www.islamonline.net/english/introducingislam/Worship/Prayers/arti...
http://www.islam.com/salat/salatfinal.html
Thank you very much. The links you provided did help quite a bit especially quran.org. My journey into Islam has been confusing at times but so far I have not found a reason to stop moving forward. I grew up in a moderate christian home but always felt that something was missing. I believe I have moved closer to finding that missing part.