REL 1510 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: American Muslim Council, Nevi'Im, Salah
Document Summary
The world"s second biggest religion also is a way of life. In a narrow, unadorned room, about 70 women, heads covered by scarves, feet bare against carpeted floor, face a television set showing a man speaking in. The women stand, bow deeply, then get down on hands and knees and touch their foreheads to the floor. This is not a scene in tehran or cairo or istanbul but in a mosque in northwest. Some women are in traditional loose-fitting tunics, others in smart business suits. Around the room, small children play, oblivious to their surroundings. Tv is actually in another part of the mosque where only males are permitted to gather for prayer. In the main room, the men perform the same rites. Like the women, their motions are fluid, their prayers memorized, reenacting a 1,400-year-old ritual repeated daily by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world. To observant muslims, ritual prayer is as natural as sleeping or eating.
