I don't know what it is about wartime prayers, but something about them makes me shudder.

These are Israeli gunners at prayer near the Lebanese border early today, right beside their artillery piece. When I saw this picture, it reminded me of three pictures I remember seeing in a newspaper during the 1980's, under the title, "Let Us Pray:"

The first one was of an orthodox Jewish soldier wearing a prayer-shawl and praying with a prayer-book.

The second was a PLO fighter in sujud (prostration), with his machine-gun propped up on the wall in front of him.

The third showed a Lebanese member of the Phalangist militia kneeling in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary in a church, his gun lying beside him on the steps.

At the time, I was struck by the irony of it all—-the three Western monotheisms, Abrahamic kissing-cousins, all turning to God, perhaps within a few miles of one another. Yet if they were to meet, they would probably kill one another if they could. And think that by doing so, God would be pleased.

The idea of holy war (under whatever name one wishes to call it) is a recurrent monotheistic problem. I don't think that this present war (or most other wars, for that matter) really begin for religious reasons. Those who thumb religious scriptures looking for verses which "prove" that a given faith "tells its followers to kill" are to my mind barking up the wrong tree (and that sort of "reasoning" is especially rich coming from those who argue that it isn't guns that kill people, it's people who kill people…). But when war does break out, for political, economic or other mundane reasons, religions have a way of adding fuel to the fire.

But in wartime, it isn't only soldiers who pray; it's also civilians. Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders throughout the world for the last few days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) have undoubtedly led their congregations in prayer over the war in Lebanon and Israel. Such prayers not only help people deal with their anxieties about the war, but also often direct the congregation as to how they "should" see it.

For instance, over at Sunnipath, a question was posed about how to pray about the Iraqi situation. The response includes the recommendation that Muslims recite supplications such as:

"O God, give victory to the Muslims, and protect our brothers in Iraq" [Allahumma 'nsur al-muslimin, wa 'hfadh ikhwanana fi'l Iraq"]

Yes, who hasn't heard enough of those du'as over the years—-for Afghanistan, Algeria, Albania… (and these are just the "A's")

At some Friday prayers in my community, these du'as are a way that the imam communicates his political beliefs. Through a prayer for "the mujahideen in Afghanistan," for instance, he may indirectly express support for the Taliban (after all, by "mujahideen" he doesn't mean the Americans, and is most unlikely to have the Northern Alliance in mind either).

But specific political allegiances aside, such prayers construct an entire worldview: "us" (Muslims) against "them" (the enemy-du-jour). I don't recall hearing prayers in any Muslim gathering I have attended for all Iraqis, or Lebanese, or Palestinians, regardless of their religion (or lack thereof). The message is nearly always that we are praying for them because they are (supposedly) all Muslims. Through these prayers, an entire imaginary world—-the "Muslim world"—-is constructed; religious minorities (and the agnostic or religiously indifferent) in that part of the world are rendered invisible.

This imaginary world is also highly masculine. Such prayers are usually for "our brothers" or "the mujahideen." Males stand for the entire ummah. I've occasionally heard prayers recited for women and children, but with the message being the brutality of the enemy and the urgent need for us to come to the help of other Muslims, whose women are being violated. Nothing is ever said in these prayers about non-Muslim women and children, and the danger they might be facing from Muslim soldiers. In this imaginary world, women are property, war-trophies. They do not have voices or aspirations of their own.

And why are we unreflectively praying for a "Muslim victory"? And what does it mean?