03-01-05 Islam for Dummies

I posted this to a forum here in response to a string on Islam:

Re: Hear, hear!

Islam means submission. to simplify for westerners, this means that Islam has a whole lot of rules to submit to. an interesting way to look at these is here (http://www.sistani.org/html/eng/main/index.php?page=4&lang=eng&part=1 ) where a grand ayatollah in Iraq (similar to a pope, to put a Christian perspective on it, offers his interpretations of the many rules from the Koran.

however, as a comparative religion, the basic practices of Muslims are quite admirable - and stand as quite an example to all religious people.

most fundamental are the five "pillars" listed below (with my comments)

1. declaration - similar to any faith, the foundation of Islam is to declare faith. "there is no god but god" is the translation of the spoken Arabic phrase. once you say that, you can call yourself a Muslim. the "oneness of god" is really the theological meat of the Islamic faith. one god for all people. period. one god who loves all people equally. period. according to Islam, Allah is the god of the Jews, the Christians, and anyone else who prays to any god by any name - it's like all their mail just gets forwarded to Allah anyway.

2. prayer - to pray or ritually meditate often is a recognized practice of nearly all human religions. Islam is pretty clear about this. 5 times a day, there are set prayers, done in a prescribed manner. the western Christian may complain that the format lacks individual freedom of expression - but, hey, how often do you pray 5 times a day?

3. charity - not optional to Muslims. the Koran is very specific in charity to social institutions and direct charity to the poor. a Calvinist revolution is unlikely. Muslims are socialists by order of scripture. it's pretty simple. that's not to say that there aren't abuses of this in the world, but the principal is built into the faith.

4. fasting (during Ramadan) - similar to lent, or a silent retreat, the concept is pretty universal. as far as fasts go, the Ramadan rules seem fairly reasonable. Muslims can't eat or drink from sundown to sunset. i have a friend at work from Indonesia, and he told me that during Ramadan, people would ring bells in the streets to wake up hours before dawn so they can eat.

5. pilgrimage - the "hadj". every Muslim is supposed to go at once in their life, if able. i once held hands and said a prayer with 60,000 people in a stadium. it was a pretty awesome and humbling experience. imagine doing noon prayers with several hundred thousand Muslims from every corner of the world, all dressed in the hadj robes, saying the same thing together - that's got to really be something. the experience has been described by writers (check out the autobiography of Malcolm X for how it changed his outlook on life).

in my research on Islams, this is my understanding of how Muslims live, and what they do.