Islam's Call to Prayer

The Muslim Call to Prayer

After the events of 911 and the realization that I knew little or nothing about Islam and the Muslim world, I read the Koran and delved into understanding the faith of Muslims and the struggles within the Islamic world today. They are as intense as what tore Europe apart during the Reformation.  We have forgotten that we  burned each other at the stake over the interpretation of a verse of scripture.

It was  inspiring to finally get behind the very formal ritualized five-times-a-day call to prayer of Islam to an understanding of what I can see as the original spiritual impluse of the Prophet.

Like the no longer honored "Morning Prayer" and "Vespers" of Christianity, The Call to Prayer is connceted to the daily cycles of the sun.  Following is my interpretation, in the language of a modern religious liberal, of Islam's Call To Prayer.
  
Just as my Unitarian faith is blasphemy to many Christian fundamentalists, this interpretation of The Call to Prayer will offend some Muslims.  It is not my intenet to offend but to understand.

I do not believe this offends God.

FAJR--Just Before Dawn--The remembrance of the Divine

DHUHR--Noon--The days work-remember the divine in our labor.

ASR--Late Afternoon--Remember the Holy in the
     greater meaning of our lives

MAGHRIB--Remember the Sacred at the close of day

ISHA--Late night and last prayer of the day--
      Mediate on God's presence, mercy, guidence
      and forgiveness.

Peace.

Posted: February 21, 2005 ,   Modified: November 15, 2007