The Religious Life in Islam.
“Clothe not the truth with vanity,
neither conceal the truth against your own knowledge;
Observe the stated seasons of prayer,
and pay your legal alms,
and bow down yourselves with those who bow down.
Will ye command men to do justice,
and forget your own souls?
Yet ye read the books of the law;
do ye not therefore understand?”
1. THE REPETITION OF THE CREED.
La iláhá Il-lal-laho, Muhammad-ur-Rasúl-Ullah.
God is the alone God, and Muhammad is the Apostle of God.
Kalima The Creed must be repeated by the true Muslim once at the least during his lifetime. This is the confession of the lips, and must be made correctly and without hesitation; it is also the confession of the heart, and must be held till death.
2. THE DAILY DEVOTIONS.
“Therefore glorify God when the evening overtaketh
you, and when ye rise in the morning;
And unto him be praise in heaven and earth, and at
sunset, and when ye rest at noon.”
Sulát There are five services of prayer daily, observed with great regularity by all religious men and women. The form is liturgical; the word Sulát has rather the meaning of devotional service than of hours of prayer. HoursThe first hour is at dawn of day. The second is at noon. The third is between four and five in the afternoon. The fourth service is held as the sun disappears beneath the horizon. The fifth is at the retiring hour at night.
Preparation Before prayer all Mussulmans cleanse face, ears and nostrils, hands and feet; that they may be free of all bodily pollution before entering the presence of God. Many change their garments each time they pray. The room is cleaned, and the worshipper who has cleaned the room changes his garments before engaging in the service.
Solemnity This service of prayer in the case of serious worshippers is very touching to the sympathetic witness; it is true, as so many critics of Islam have noted, that prayer is formal, and is repeated in an unknown tongue; but to those who know the heart hunger which constantly finds expression in that five-times-repeated daily liturgy, who would fain change the constant refrain “God is great” for the gladder “God is love,” the service, whether in the mosque, in the home, or on the wayside, is one of the most pathetic appeals addressed to the unknown God by any people.
There is no mediation; prayer is offered directly to God, the only reference to the Prophet being a prayer “for Muhammad and his descendants.”
Prayer is always offered in the sacred language.
3. RAMADHÁN, THE MONTH OF FASTING.
“O true believers, a fast is ordained you, as it was ordained to those before you, that ye may fear God. A certain number of days shall ye fast; but he among you who shall be sick, or on a journey, shall fast an equal number of other days. And those who can keep it and do not, must reckon their neglect by maintaining of a poor man. And he who voluntarily dealeth better with the poor man than he is obliged, this shall be better for him. But if ye fast it will be better for you, if ye knew it.”
Roza It is probable that Muhammad ordained the month of fasting in imitation of the Christian Lent. Ramadhán, the ninth month of the year, made sacred for ever by the descent of the Quran from highest heaven, to be revealed to the Angel Gabriel (who delivered it as required to the Prophet), is set apart for this religious sacrifice. Every Mussulman is on the look-out for the first appearance of the new moon, sign of the beginning of the fast (the lunar year is followed), and from that evening for thirty days, from dawn until sunset neither food nor water is touched. When Ramadhán in the course of the years occurs in the hot season, the fast is terrible in its severity. Cloudless sky, scorching sun, burning winds, and not one drop of water to quench the awful thirst; and at the same time additional prayers, with the accompanying genuflections; this while the day’s task must still be accomplished; it is a terrible test of the obedience and devotion of the Faithful. It is true that travellers, invalids, women nursing little children, and the weak, are exempt; but the fasts are supposed to be made up, and we have known many who have struggled through the month, who were quite unfit for it. The early morning and evening meal—taken before dawn and after sunset—is not appetizing, for it is always composed of stale food.
I have never known any religious man or woman who regarded the fast as a hardship. “It is little we can do to serve God,” said one woman. Little children plead to be allowed to fast. Boys and girls become utterly exhausted, parched and fainting, in homes where religious observances are faithfully kept.
4. ALMSGIVING.
Zakát
“Forget not liberality among you, for God seeth that which ye do.”
“The Lord is surely in a watch-tower, whence he observeth the actions of men. Moreover man, when his Lord trieth him by prosperity, and honoureth him, and is bounteous to him, saith:—My Lord honoureth me; but when he proveth him by afflictions, and withholdeth His provisions from him, he saith:—My Lord despiseth me. By no means; but ye honour not the orphan, neither do ye excite one another to feed the poor; and ye devour the inheritance of the weak, with undistinguishing greediness; and ye love riches with much affection....
“O thou soul which art at rest, return unto thy Lord, well pleased with thy reward, and well pleasing unto our God; enter among my servants, and enter Paradise.”
A fortieth part of the income belongs to the poor, and is, in Muslim lands, a compulsory tax. It is distinct from private almsgiving.
5. PILGRIMAGE.
Hajj
“They who shall disbelieve, and obstruct the way of God, and hinder men from visiting the holy temple at Mecca, which We have appointed for a place of worship unto all men: the inhabitant thereof and the stranger have an equal right to visit it.”
Islam is scattered in many lands; but the idea of Muhammad was of a universal Kingdom. The idea was never realized, but the grip of the master hand is felt to this day. Each of the duties of the Faith is a symbol of its unity; but the constraining symbol is the centralization at Mecca. This is the sole remaining sign of the great vision. Islam is far scattered; it is broken into many sects; there are language separations, and deeper racial separations; but the whole unwieldy system and following is bound together by the Mecca pilgrimage, the least spiritual thing in the whole system. Muhammad made a brave battle for the unity and pure spirituality of God. But it was the deepest desire of his heart to win Mecca. He did so at the expense of his central belief. Mussulmans visit the idolatrous city to-day as they did in the long past idolatrous ages. The visible church of Islam is not a pure and beautiful and worthy mosque; it is the old idolatrous stone of Mecca.
Every true Muslim is bound to visit Mecca at the least once in his lifetime.
6. SOCIAL MORALITY.
Social Morality The social morality of Islam is—notwithstanding the marriage laws—very high, and is guided by such virtues as these: modesty, honesty, kindness and brotherliness. When Muhammad fled from Mecca with his followers, and settled in Madina, the little community was a commonwealth, and that ideal has been retained in wonderful manner throughout the centuries and the far wanderings. There is no caste in Islam, neither the Eastern nor the Western form of that system. Each man stands in the same relation to the God Who rules him, and the consequent brotherhood is a very real thing. Poor and rich are not divided, to be poor is in itself a claim, and if a poor man comes to a rich man for aid, the rich man regards it as a favour. The laws of hospitality are most noble; strangers are assured in any Muslim house of a welcome, a meal, a rest, and if need be, even of clothing. Hospitality is an act of worship.
The aged are held in a beautiful reverence; the poor, and especially the orphan, is cared for as a religious duty; in the home the patriarchal system still rules, the servant is a part of the family, and is treated with kindness.—Is he not a brother in the Faith?
The position of woman remains as it was left by Muhammad thirteen hundred years ago—for there is no growth in Islam—and it is not easy to define it. On the one hand is the marriage law, which gives to the husband full power over his wife or wives; on the other, the property law, which grants to a woman holding property in her own right, absolute control over it. In the latter respect, therefore, the law of Islam is in advance of the law of Great Britain. I have known the curious anomaly of a woman whose person was at the mercy of a brutal drunken wretch, whom she yet held in some degree in check through his dependence upon her for the means with which to live his chosen life.