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Prayer, Placement, and Absolution: Peter Hristoff on Islamic Prayer Rugs (2015)
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- kamikazeturtles 2y agoI 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.
- nicbou 2y agoI look for this sort of thing whenever I travel, but it’s really hard to find.
- noufalibrahim 2y agoIslam 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 2y agoCan you please elaborate on 'representational art' in this context?
- Cyph0n 2y agoIn the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.
- karim79 2y agoFrom 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." [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=The%20Quran%2C%20the%20Islamic%20holy,they%20were%20being%20written%20down https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniconism_in_Islam#:~:text=T....
- Cyph0n 2y agoIn 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.
- noufalibrahim 2y agoIslamic 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.
- renewiltord 2y agoIdolatry. Graven idols. That sort of thing. Hence geometry instead.
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- dieppe 2y agoThere's a _great_ book about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Name_Is_Red Helps understand how arts, religion, and power are intermingled. Made me question what we mean by "tradition" ; they always seemed fixed to a present observer, but are also the result of constant change. Anyway, there's more to the book and it is really a great read (maybe more so if like me you know close to nothing about the Ottoman empire). (and just to be clear: this book talks about what was admitted as acceptable art at a specific period in a specific region where Islam was the state religion, not commenting on the art in Islam as a whole as I would be incapable of doing so)
- noufalibrahim 2y agoThanks for the recommendation. There's considerable latitude in implementation of the rulings. Even within the law itself, there are strong/weak positions, dispensations for some circumstances etc. Among schools of thought, there are differences in opinions which might, to a non specialist, seem very trivial but they have huge consequences when implemented at scale. Music and it's role in the Ottoman sultanate is one example that comes to mind. And outside of that, there are cultural, economic and human factors that also have their effect on the practice (and sometimes even the theory) of religion. Generally speaking, Islamic canon law keeps evolving over time while trying to stay faithful to first principles. It's a specialist field and requires a lot of time and study to formulate rulings. It's the reason why, I mentioned in another comment that studying the basics from a derived text is sufficient for "most Muslims". People often turn to the primary texts for general guidance and succor but for details about a narrow situation, they refer to the other books or speak to a scholar.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y agolike this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction_by_the_Islamic_Emirate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction...
- rayiner 2y agoI remember my grandmother carting her prayer rug all the way from Bangladesh to the U.S. when she came to visit.
- kasey_junk 2y agoOne 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.
- chamanbuga 2y agoI didn't know Orthodox Christians prostrated in their prayer much less use prayer rugs. Curious where this practice remains today.
- handfuloflight 2y agoThey would as per Matthew 26:39. > "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.’"
- sramsay 2y agoProstrations 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.
- michaelsbradley 2y agoThey'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.
- asadalt 2y agothere 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.
- uptownfunk 2y agoIn 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 2y agoIn all the years of using one I never thought it made anything sacred. It keeps my forehead clean and cushions my knees
- PrismCrystal 2y agoThis 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.
- umeshunni 2y agoInteresting. TIL http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7469221.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7469221.stm
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- mkoubaa 2y agoI knew people who "groomed" a zebiba, for lack of a better term. I don't doubt that some people who have one are not doing it for show (otherwise who are they emulating?). Whether or not it's fashionable depends on your social circle, I assumr
- pushupentry1219 2y ago(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). Also note; Shias place their head on a stone/rock to mimic this practice: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbah https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbah
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- dang 2y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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- dang 2y agoPlease don't do this here.
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- Philpax 2y agoWow, thank you for posting this quote showing that Churchill was a right bastard. Really expanded my mind.
- smusamashah 2y agoOnly thing I can add to discussion is that this rug is called "place of prayer" in Urdu (which is Jaaey Namaz or جائے نماز). There is often picture of Kaba on it but some people don't agree with that and prefer not using those rugs.
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- htx80nerd 2y agoAm I on a tech site?
- syspec 2y agoYes, you've been on here for all of 5 days.
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- keybored 2y agoWhat does your comment accomplish? In my experience people here have eclectict intellecual tastes.
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- scdnc 2y agoWhy is there more and more talk about ideological topics on every social media platform? I don't know how it is for others, but I'm on HackerNews specifically to escape from this kind of thing.