Islamic sects
I think it is necessary to say a few words about the Islamic sects before describing the basic religious rituals of the Arabs: Islam includes several sects, like every religion, and the number of Islamic sects, since the beginning of the Hijri calendar, has reached seventy-two sects, and more than this number of Protestant sects alone.
The Sunnis and Shiites are the oldest and most important Islamic sects. As for the Shiites, they claim that the caliphate belongs to the Prophet’s son-in-law, Ali, and they respect Ali almost as much as they respect Muhammad. As for the Sunnis, they see the caliphate of the caliphs as correct according to their order, and the Sunnis represent the correct group.
If we exclude these two sects, we see secondary sects in Islam, the most important of which is Wahhabism, which emerged a century ago and established a powerful state in the center of the Arabian Peninsula. Wahhabism claims to restore Islam to its ancient purity, but the Wahhabis are in fact the Protestants of Islam.
Figure 5-1 : Mihrab in Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo (from a photograph taken by the author) .
The Persians are Shiites, the Arabs and Turks are Sunnis, and the people of Najd are Wahhabis.
Some of these sects view each other with tolerance, and the sects in Syria, in particular, can serve as a model for the various Christian sects. You do not find in the Islamic world courts like the Inquisition, which were established to force the supporters of one sect to adopt the principles of another sect with iron and fire. You do find professors affiliated with different sects living side by side, understanding one another, in Al-Azhar Mosque, which is the most important seat of religious education in the East.
Let us now mention the important religious rituals of the Arabs:
Prayer: Prayer is one of the most important acts of worship stipulated in the Sharia of Muhammad. A Muslim must never refrain from performing it, regardless of his nation or class.
Prayer must be performed five times at specific times every day, as the Prophet commanded. The muezzins call Muslims from the minarets in the vast lands of Islam to prayer.
Figure 5-2 : Shrine of an Arab saint in the sacred forest of Blida (Algeria, from a photograph) .
With their loud voices at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening prayers, and the formula for the call to prayer is:
God is great, I bear witness that there is no god but God, I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of God, come to prayer.
When the call to prayer is made, Muslims stand up to pray, raising their hands to their ears, then placing them under their navels, reciting whatever verses of the Qur’an they can, then bowing and prostrating more than once.
Muslims perform Friday prayers at noon in mosques after listening to the imam’s sermon, which lasts for three-quarters of an hour.
A Muslim must perform ablution before praying, and you will find an ablution basin in every mosque.
Fasting: Fasting is also one of the most important acts of worship in Islam. Muslims fast regardless of their class, and Muslims observe the strict conditions of fasting with such precision that it is difficult for a European to do so.
It is envisioned that fasting during the month of Ramadan, which occurs at different times of the year, involves abstaining from eating, drinking, and smoking from dawn to sunset.
A Muslim’s abstention from drinking and smoking during the day involves forcing himself to do so. When sunset approaches, you will see a Muslim holding a cigarette or holding his hookah pipe, waiting impatiently for the muezzin’s call to break the fast. When the sun sets, the Muslim makes up for what he missed and eats a plentiful meal.
Figure 5-3 : The upper section of the Abbasid shrine recently discovered in Cairo (from a photograph) .
During the nights of Ramadan, coffee shops are lit, stories are performed, games are watched after iftar, and mosques are lit.
Religious holidays: Muslims have many religious holidays, except for Ramadan. Among them are the Prophet’s birthday, the dreaded night of the fifteenth of Sha’ban, when people’s destinies are weighed and organized, and Eid al-Adha, which lasts four days at the end of the year and symbolizes the sacrifice of Abraham.
Every family slaughters a sheep or other animal on Eid al-Adha. Muslims wear their finest clothes and walk in the markets. The mosques are lit with colorful lamps. I consider the night I looked at the illuminated port of Rhodes on the night of Eid al-Adha to be one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen in my life.
The influence of Islam on the most delicate affairs of the Arabs reached such an extent that all their ceremonies became religious acts. Among those ceremonies were their marriages and circumcisions, which we described in a previous chapter, and which are, in reality, nothing but religious and civil acts combined.
Hajj: A Muslim’s pilgrimage to Mecca once in a lifetime is one of the most important religious and political commandments of Muhammad.
Figure 5-4 : Ceiling of the Al-Mu’ayyad Mosque in Cairo (photo by Kost) .
The Hajj is performed by large caravans, the most important of which are those that depart from Cairo and the Levant. The journey is long, and many pilgrims die during it. The hardship is lightened by the visit to the famous Kaaba in the days of Muhammad, whose origins date back to the most ancient centuries of history.
When the pilgrims approached Mecca, they shaved their heads, took off their clothes, performed ablutions, put on the izar (loincloth), then circled the Kaaba seven times, touched the famous Black Stone, which we discussed in another chapter, then headed to Mount Arafat, near Mecca, where they heard the Imam’s sermon. Then they proceeded to the place where they throw pebbles at Satan in the valley from which Abraham expelled him. Then they slaughtered the sacrifices, and then the most zealous of them visited Medina, which contains the grave of the Messenger.
Typically, the number of pilgrims visiting Mecca each year reaches two hundred thousand. During the Hajj season, Muslims come from all over the Islamic world, extending from Marrakesh to India and the borders of China, passing through the Central African Republic.
