A Lesson from Our Muslim Guide

One of the many reasons I enjoyed our guide, Salih, was his penchant for wearing T-shirts promoting various U.S. sports teams--here, the Wisconsin Badgers, my home state university team! (Salih is a U.S. citizen, and lived many years in the U.S.)

Salih is also a Muslim. Here, in the "Blue Mosque" in Istanbul, he spent some time giving us a brief overview of the basic beliefs and practices of Islam.

The mosque in Islam is basically a house of prayer. Five times a day the call goes out from the minaret(s) of each mosque, calling faithful Muslims to prayer; we heard the call to pray numerous times, including once at 4:30 AM when we slept with our hotel window open! Prayer can be done at home, at work, at the mosque, or whereve one is--but, all Muslims are expected to gather at the mosque for the Friday noon prayer, which often includes a sermon by the imam (religious leader).

Salih commented on the significance of being called to prayer five times a day. For Muslims, that is the most telling mark of their faith because it has daily impact. Imagine stopping whatever you are doing five times between sunrise and sunset to either go to the mosque or find a private place to spend 1o minutes in prayer with the 1.3 billion Muslims throughout the world. "When you are called to prayer five times a day, you don't have time to do anything bad in between!" Salih remarked. (I wonder if the taxi driver who cheated us in Istanbul had prayed that day?)

In the Christian tradition, regular and frequent call to prayer is historically part of monastic practice, but not for all Christians. Certainly we are encouraged to pray. Certainly Jesus teaches us to pray, and assumes we will pray. When his disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he responded, "When (not "if") you pray, say this...." and he taught them the Lord's Prayer.

What if we took that call to prayer seriously? What impact would it have on the lives of people of faith if we stopped whatever we were doing to pray 5 times daily--or even 3 times--or even once? How would it shape our lives? How would we be changed if we regularly, intentionally, turned to God in prayer and remembered how prayer binds us together with other people of faith, in worship and service of a God who bestows forgiveness, mercy and love and calls us to be merciful and loving toward others? What do you think that would do in your life? in our world? I don't know if it would prevent us from doing anything bad, but it would certainly be more likely to keep us connected to the souce of all good!

That's worth thinking about, isn't it?

And--worth praying about!