Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians - Electric Scotland
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THE WORSHIPFUL ACTS t 221<br />
Friday Prayer <strong>and</strong> the Mosque<br />
The Muslim’s daily prayers might be said in private in any decent<br />
<strong>and</strong> dignified setting, but the noon prayer on Friday had a special<br />
liturgical significance in that it was a prescribed congregational<br />
prayer. Friday came to be called the “day of assembly” (yawm aljuma),<br />
<strong>and</strong> the place of that congregation was known as the “assembly”<br />
(jami). This latter is what we call a mosque, though the<br />
English word goes back to another Arabic word describing another<br />
function of the same place: masjid, a place of prostration or<br />
worship.<br />
The Muslim Friday began its career as a reaction, Muhammad’s<br />
own reaction, it appears, to the Jewish Sabbath, once again in the<br />
sense of deliberately choosing a day <strong>for</strong> common prayer that<br />
would distinguish the Muslims of Medina from the <strong>Jews</strong> there. On<br />
that day the community prayer is celebrated, <strong>and</strong> though it is not<br />
<strong>for</strong>mally a day of rest, in the sense that normal activities, usually<br />
commercial, had to be suspended, it is becoming assimilated by<br />
Muslims worldwide into an exp<strong>and</strong>ing notion of the “weekend”<br />
as nonworking days.<br />
The first mosque in <strong>Islam</strong> was the courtyard of Muhammad’s<br />
own house in Medina. Its successors in the <strong>Islam</strong>ic diaspora served<br />
much the same purpose as the original building, a simple structure<br />
used indifferently <strong>for</strong> political assembly <strong>and</strong> liturgy. There were<br />
few architectural requirements: flowing water <strong>for</strong> ablution be<strong>for</strong>e<br />
prayer in an open court <strong>and</strong> a tower or minaret from which the<br />
muezzin might summon the faithful to prayer; within, a niche<br />
(mihrab) to note the qibla, or prayer direction (toward Mecca),<br />
<strong>and</strong> a raised throne (minbar)—as opposed to the Christian pulpit,<br />
which is a kind of raised podium—which originally served as a<br />
sort of political rostrum but which developed, with the progressive<br />
restriction of the mosque to liturgical functions, into a pulpit <strong>for</strong><br />
the Friday sermon.<br />
The mosque is the single most distinctive sign of a Muslim community.<br />
In the <strong>Islam</strong>ic l<strong>and</strong>s the cities are filled with them, generally<br />
built by private rather than public funds from the already<br />
noted waqf, <strong>and</strong> sited wherever the will <strong>and</strong> the wealth of the