GHS- Islamic Prayer 11/06

This reading was about the prayer that muslims do everyday. Which I had no idea it was actually that long. I thought on page 197, the first section, “The Call to Prayer,” was all they said repeatedly and then they were done. As well as, I had no idea that the placement of where one’s hands, fingers, and eyes were very important during the prayer. In addition, some surprising things I read were how at the end an alternative to an attribute during the closing of prayer, some would say the 99 names of God in Islam. I for one, did not know that God had 99 names in Islam. Since I’ve have only referenced or heard those say either, Lord, God, Father, He, etc. for Christians and Catholics, as well as, Allah and God for Muslims. Plus, muslims have these memorized, like holy cow, that’s a lot to memorize but I can see it would become easier to know when doing the prayer daily as well as, being taught it at a young age and repeating it multiple times. Moreover, during the Islamic prayer the phrase “peace be with you,” ” Praise to God,” and “Glory to my Lord the most high;” are very similar to some things I’ve had to the say in some church during Catholic service/mass. For example, “Glory to God in the highest (from The Gloria) ,” “peace be to God,” and “peace be with you,” are very similar to the phrases in the Islamic prayer. These phrases both are similar and connect also to Christianity and Judaism. All these phrases have similar meaning, but they are just worded different. This article shows the comparison between roman Catholics, Protestant, and Jews for the Lord’s Prayer. Anyways, look forward to furthering this discussion on religions in class tomorrow.