I love this sort of writing. Bringing attention to something you don't pay too much attention to, even as a muslim. My prayer rug has tessellation patterns, probably a testament to God's infiniteness.
Where I'm originally from in Diyarbakir, Turkey, the Christians also use prayer rugs when prostrating (to, I think, Jerusalem) so this isn't an exclusively "Islamic" thing.
noufalibrahim 4 hours ago [-]
Islam generally has a prohibiton on representational art. Most of the artistic skills were pulled into calligraphy and tesselations.
It's why these show up in almost all Islamic artifacts.
karim79 4 hours ago [-]
Can you please elaborate on 'representational art' in this context?
Cyph0n 4 hours ago [-]
In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.
karim79 4 hours ago [-]
From Wikipedia[0]:
"The Quran, the Islamic holy book, does not prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry. Interdictions of figurative representation are present in the hadith, among a dozen of the hadith recorded during the latter part of the period when they were being written down."
In Sunni Islam, the Hadith is essentially a companion source to the Quran - in particular, Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.
But I should have been more specific. I think Shia art has the same restrictions though - could be wrong.
MrMcCall 11 minutes ago [-]
Only the Quran is guaranteed to be unchanged (but the interpretations and translations are not so guaranteed), the Hadiths are not.
The proper perspective is that if the Hadith and Quran are in conflict, the Quran is the authoratative source.
From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone.
And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
noufalibrahim 2 hours ago [-]
Islamic canon law (the Shariah) is derived from primary texts (the Quran and Hadith) and uses interpretive methodologies (like deductive analogy - Qiyas) to derive rulings that are not explicitly discussed in the primary source material. This gives some amount of openness and causes some differences of opinion resulting in multiple schools of thought.
Practicing Muslims rely on books and texts that systematize this knowledge and provide it in a practical form for daily use rather than go to the source material (which can be overwhelming if one wants to find, for example, the ruling on whether a certain action in a specific context is permissible or not). Most Muslim children, as part of their basic religious education, learn the basics of Islamic law and practice from such a book. That's usually enough to go through ones life.
The ruling on representational art is based on this kind of derivation. There are some exceptions (e.g. for educational, security etc. purposes) but they're generally narrowly circumscribed.
Sunni tradition relies primarily on the Quran and 6 books of Hadith (of which the two you've mentioned are the main ones). Shia tradition has a smaller Hadith corpus because of theological differences about the reliability of the chains of narration of the Hadith and hence the derived rulings are very different in some areas. I've generally seen Shia works of art where prophetic companions, angels etc. are pictured but non-realistically (unlike Christian iconography). Some of them blank out the faces but it's not a tradition I'm deeply familiar with so I don't know.
My theory is that the huge emphasis on calligraphy and tesselations in Islamic art is mainly because of this. We don't have (many) paintings and sculptures of religious figures like in the Christian traditions.
2 hours ago [-]
renewiltord 4 hours ago [-]
Idolatry. Graven idols. That sort of thing. Hence geometry instead.
kasey_junk 9 hours ago [-]
One thing I’ve been curious about for a long time is if the use of prayer rugs in the Orthodox Churches predates Islam or was picked up by Christians from their Muslim neighbors.
pvg 9 hours ago [-]
That whole bundle of traditions - prayer times, prayer directions, prayer accessories, etc predates Islam if for no other reason than that Islam is comparatively new. But the cross-pollination could have easily happened more than once and in both directions.
handfuloflight 9 hours ago [-]
In fact the Muslims initially prayed towards Jerusalem (as did the Jews then and today) until revelation specifically turned them towards Mecca:
> "So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque in Mecca). And wherever you are, turn your faces toward it..."
Quran 2:144
ralmidani 6 hours ago [-]
Even Muslims do not claim their religion is completely novel. The rituals may differ, but the creed preached by Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) is the same preached by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, John, Jesus, and countless other prophets (peace be upon them all): worship The One True God (Allah, Yahweh) with no partners.
As far as prayer rugs and other accessories, those are not actually part of our rituals as Muslims. Some people use them for practical purposes (prayer rugs help you avoid prostrating on dirt, asphalt, a potentially unclean carpet, etc. and prayer beads make it easier to keep count), while some others may have cultural reasons, and some just want to enhance their spiritual experience (e.g. incense and perfume).
MrMcCall 9 minutes ago [-]
It's all the Hanif Religion of Abraham, whose texts have been lost to time.
Compassion is the only purpose of all God's religions, and is the ultimate arbiter of our life's chosen actions.
pushupentry1219 4 hours ago [-]
Muslims say that Islam _was_ the religion of all the prophets you've mentioned. Because of this they also believe that Islam is the _oldest_ religion, since Adam, the first man, followed Islam.
chamanbuga 9 hours ago [-]
I didn't know Orthodox Christians prostrated in their prayer much less use prayer rugs. Curious where this practice remains today.
raptorraver 2 hours ago [-]
Especially monks and nuns do prostrations as part of their prayer rule. Some do hunderds, some do even thousands prostrations during their prayers. We use prayer rope when recitating Jesus Prayer[1]. Prayer rope helps count the prayers but also it gives your hands something to do while praying, so it's easier to focus. I usually have one in my pocket and I roll it in my hands secretly while in meetings or sometimes even during typing code. I don't really pray then but it reminds me of the spiritual reality and that my boring Teams-meetings and stupid Jira-tickets aren't the purpose of my life ;)
> "Going a little farther, he [Jesus] fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’"
_DeadFred_ 8 hours ago [-]
Every Orthodox service I've been to we stood the entire time, though I never went on special holidays. My inner ex-Catholic wondered is it really church if I don't kneel and stand, kneel and stand, kneel and stand all through the service?
My Ukrainian ex had a worship space in a corner. It didn't have any rugs but had hauntingly beautiful hand painted icons. Maybe rugs are more of a thing in the old countries?
PrismCrystal 7 hours ago [-]
Practices in Orthodox services can differ. For example, in some Romanian parishes everyone has knelt while the Gospel was being read, but I have never seen this elsewhere. And as the other poster mentions, full prostrations are done (and widely across the Orthodox world) in certain contexts.
Some churches in Greece and Albania have pews -- the concept was brought back from the North American diaspora where Orthodox parishes were set up in former Protestant or Catholic church buildings -- so you can do all the standing, sitting, and kneeling you might be accustomed too.
jacobolus 7 hours ago [-]
Churches probably have some kind of theological explanation, but alternately kneeling, sitting, and standing is much better physiologically. Having a large and diverse group of people all stay in the same position for an extended period is very rough on their bodies, and some more than others. Periodically switching prevents injuries caused by maintaining too much static load for too long in any one place. Probably also helps keep everyone awake. For the same reasons it's a good idea to occasionally switch positions while working.
MrMcCall 4 minutes ago [-]
Loving God is not for God's benefit, but for ours. Our emanating love towards our Creator helps us emanate compassion for all our fellow human beings. It is the Greatest Command(ment), and the sole purpose of religion.
As such -- as you say -- changing positions is good for our body which helps us to be more physically comfortable in this magnificent machine. Happiness is God's desire for us, but It has given us the absolutely free will to choose happiness or its opposites. A prayerful life is for personal and societal growth towards selfless compassion for all others, and away from selfish callous disregard for others.
There are theological explanations but it is also explicitly taught that physical movement and awareness of your body is an important part of prayer, similar to how bells and incense ask you to include those senses.
Also there isn't a rule against sitting, orthodox churches have seats for people who need or want them and it's absolutely normal to see people sit for some or all of services. It is discouraged to notice who or wonder why.
sramsay 9 hours ago [-]
Prostrations are part of every Orthodox tradition, to my knowledge. You will even see people making prostrations publicly in church especially during Great Lent, but you will generally not see people doing it at a Sunday liturgy since (in most traditions) prostrations are forbidden on Sundays.
raptorraver 2 hours ago [-]
There are variances in the traditions also here. In Russian tradition all the people in the Church do prostration during the eucharist prayers where wine and old are turned into Communion, and also before they partake the Communion. But in Greek tradition they don't do any prostrations during the liturgy. Prostrations aren't forbidden on Sundays but if you partake Eucharist you are not allowed to do prostration during that day.
asadalt 7 hours ago [-]
there is something about prostrations that’s interesting but i can’t tell what exactly scientifically. But it brings me relief everytime I do it in namaz. I understand that the act of submission is relieving (things will be ok/there is someone looking out for me) but also physically (hard to explain)
no wonder it’s the meat of the entire prayer. Taking a prayer break from my messy code problems really resets my brain strain very quickly.
michaelsbradley 8 hours ago [-]
They're part of the Western (Catholic) tradition as well, but less frequently encountered: during the Litany of the Saints that precedes ordination to the priesthood those to be ordained are prostrate; the ministers at the start of the Good Friday liturgy lie prostrate before the altar; and a few other special contexts.
uptownfunk 7 hours ago [-]
In ancient times Hindus had a prayer mat made of kuusha or kaasha grass. Apparently the grass descended from the hairs of the boar incarnation. So this notion of a seat in worship is indeed very ancient.
mkoubaa 7 hours ago [-]
In all the years of using one I never thought it made anything sacred. It keeps my forehead clean and cushions my knees
PrismCrystal 7 hours ago [-]
This reminds me of the practice in Egypt where men would intentionally press their heads into the ground when praying in order to develop a callous, colloquially called a zebiba, showing off their piety. Is this still fashionable? When I traveled rural Egypt in 2008 it was omnipresent; one shopkeeper told me he no longer believed in religion, but he had to develop a zebiba nevertheless, otherwise no one would buy from his shop.
MrMcCall 2 minutes ago [-]
Jesus speaks ill of those who make shows of religion, saying that they get all their benefits from being seen doing religious things. There is a social aspect to religion that can be negative or positive. As always, God looks into our heart to reward us for our actual intentions, for intention is the multiplier for our deeds.
(I'm a Muslim). I mean... Strictly speaking as far as i am aware the mat/rug is not sacred itself. It is just a place to put your head +knees comfortably.
In fact the Prophet Muhammad SAW did not use a prayer mat and instead he placed his head on the soil (ground/earth).
Where I'm originally from in Diyarbakir, Turkey, the Christians also use prayer rugs when prostrating (to, I think, Jerusalem) so this isn't an exclusively "Islamic" thing.
It's why these show up in almost all Islamic artifacts.
"The Quran, the Islamic holy book, does not prohibit the depiction of human figures; it merely condemns idolatry. Interdictions of figurative representation are present in the hadith, among a dozen of the hadith recorded during the latter part of the period when they were being written down."
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=T....
But I should have been more specific. I think Shia art has the same restrictions though - could be wrong.
The proper perspective is that if the Hadith and Quran are in conflict, the Quran is the authoratative source.
From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone.
And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
Practicing Muslims rely on books and texts that systematize this knowledge and provide it in a practical form for daily use rather than go to the source material (which can be overwhelming if one wants to find, for example, the ruling on whether a certain action in a specific context is permissible or not). Most Muslim children, as part of their basic religious education, learn the basics of Islamic law and practice from such a book. That's usually enough to go through ones life.
The ruling on representational art is based on this kind of derivation. There are some exceptions (e.g. for educational, security etc. purposes) but they're generally narrowly circumscribed.
Sunni tradition relies primarily on the Quran and 6 books of Hadith (of which the two you've mentioned are the main ones). Shia tradition has a smaller Hadith corpus because of theological differences about the reliability of the chains of narration of the Hadith and hence the derived rulings are very different in some areas. I've generally seen Shia works of art where prophetic companions, angels etc. are pictured but non-realistically (unlike Christian iconography). Some of them blank out the faces but it's not a tradition I'm deeply familiar with so I don't know.
My theory is that the huge emphasis on calligraphy and tesselations in Islamic art is mainly because of this. We don't have (many) paintings and sculptures of religious figures like in the Christian traditions.
> "So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque in Mecca). And wherever you are, turn your faces toward it..."
Quran 2:144
As far as prayer rugs and other accessories, those are not actually part of our rituals as Muslims. Some people use them for practical purposes (prayer rugs help you avoid prostrating on dirt, asphalt, a potentially unclean carpet, etc. and prayer beads make it easier to keep count), while some others may have cultural reasons, and some just want to enhance their spiritual experience (e.g. incense and perfume).
Compassion is the only purpose of all God's religions, and is the ultimate arbiter of our life's chosen actions.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer
> "Going a little farther, he [Jesus] fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.’"
My Ukrainian ex had a worship space in a corner. It didn't have any rugs but had hauntingly beautiful hand painted icons. Maybe rugs are more of a thing in the old countries?
Some churches in Greece and Albania have pews -- the concept was brought back from the North American diaspora where Orthodox parishes were set up in former Protestant or Catholic church buildings -- so you can do all the standing, sitting, and kneeling you might be accustomed too.
As such -- as you say -- changing positions is good for our body which helps us to be more physically comfortable in this magnificent machine. Happiness is God's desire for us, but It has given us the absolutely free will to choose happiness or its opposites. A prayerful life is for personal and societal growth towards selfless compassion for all others, and away from selfish callous disregard for others.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_Middle_...
Also there isn't a rule against sitting, orthodox churches have seats for people who need or want them and it's absolutely normal to see people sit for some or all of services. It is discouraged to notice who or wonder why.
no wonder it’s the meat of the entire prayer. Taking a prayer break from my messy code problems really resets my brain strain very quickly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7469221.stm
In fact the Prophet Muhammad SAW did not use a prayer mat and instead he placed his head on the soil (ground/earth).
Also note; Shias place their head on a stone/rock to mimic this practice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbah