As I was reading this section of the autobiography, the prayer rituals were very interesting to me. The one topic that really kept my attention was the prayer rugs. What were they used for? Why were they so important? Malcolm explained that the Muslims did everything on them when they were stuck in the airport (Sleep, eat, and pray), but I wanted to specifically understand why they have the rug. Is it because they scrubbed every part of their body that shows before praying? I really had no idea so once again I looked it up.
http://islam.about.com/od/prayer/f/prayer_rugs.htm
As explained on this website. These rugs are very intricate forms of artwork. They are carefully created, and when in use the rug always points towards Mecca. I was right with the cleanliness! A rule in the Islamic religion is that you need to be bowing and kneeling to Allah (God) where it is clean. So, the Muslims scrub themselves before prayer, and then in order to keep clean kneel on the rug. The final fact about this rug, is that it allows the Muslims to focus on prayers, rather than worrying about getting in others' way (Huda).
So, I was overall pretty right, and now I come away with more information on a a religion I don't know too much about.
Work Cited
Huda. “What are prayer rugs, and how are they used by Muslims?” About.com. 8 Mar. 2009
1 comment:
Yo Caylin,
I'm glad somebody looked this up because I was wondering when we went to Harlem why they used rugs instead of benches and were they specifically significant to the religion. I hadn't thought about it too much but it all makes sense overall. They want to look presentable for the creator of the earth so they clean themselves and kneel on a rug to stay clean. I had an idea before reading your blog that this was true. But I never would have guessed that they were pointed in the direction of Mecca when being used. I'm glad somebody cleared this up because I was a little curious when we visited the mosque Malcolm went to in Harlem. It was pretty interesting to learn this and apparently they have pretty good logic as to their reasons for using a rug. I also wondered if the color of the rug was always the same, and if it was, if that was significant, but that's something I will have to look up myself if i get overly curious.
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