Not every Muslim prays regularly or in the mosque. But enough do to have made the salah a powerful symbol, as noted admiringly by the late Pope John Paul: “From sincere Muslims, Christians can learn the courage of sincere prayer. They pray five times a day and no matter where they are, be it the railway station or the airport, they will do it, whereas many Christians are ashamed of making the sign of the Cross in a restaurant or pulling out a rosary on a train.”

The Friday Prayer

Juma

On Fridays, the noon prayer (juma) must be said with others in a mosque, unless one finds oneself in a place with no other Muslims to form a congregation. In that case, the rule of flexibility applies, and one reverts to the individual daily noon prayer. Women are exempted from the Friday prayer but are free to attend and, depending on cultural traditions, do.

Juma has higher attendance than the daily prayers. Friday is to Muslims what Sunday is to Christians, and Saturday is to Jews. In Muslim nations, Friday is usually a holiday, enabling the believers to enjoy the prayers and meet other Muslims at a leisurely pace. In Western nations, most employers permit their Muslim employees to adjust their lunch hour to take the needed hour or two. Increasingly, labor codes are being amended to give Muslim employees the same rights on Fridays as are conferred on Jewish workers for the Saturday Sabbath, with the employees making up the lost time.

The Festivals of Eid

Even bigger than juma are the gatherings for the Eid (rejoicing) festivals — the Eid al-fitr, at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, and the Eid al-adha, two months and ten days later, which marks the day of Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Both Eid prayers — held after sunrise, usually around 8 or 9 AM — are generally offered in open grounds set aside for just this mass thanksgiving and community solidarity. In the West where Muslims are a minority, they rent big halls or stadiums for the two occasions.

Eid is the Muslim Christmas — a happy occasion for family and friends, and a time to exchange gifts.

An integral part of both the Eid and the weekly juma prayers is a sermon by the imam. The pulpit is a powerful platform from which to communicate with the people. That’s how the 1979 Iranian revolution was brought about, with mosques serving as centers of mass mobilization. Dictatorial regimes, such as those in China, Russia and Egypt, control the contents of the sermons even more than they censor the media. Keeping mosques and the Eid prayer grounds under government control, they fire the priests who become critical. One of the ironies of the post-9/11 world is that many Western governments have also taken to surreptitiously monitoring the juma and the Eid sermons.

CHARITY

Zakat (to purify)