I 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.
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)
"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."
Islamic 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.
Nit, perhaps, but relying on third parties to interpret the source material, and only learning what is supposedly permissible from secondary texts without learning how to engage with and argue over the subtler aspects of primary texts, is not much of a life. If you want to say it's enough for most people, you must expect most people to accomplish very little.
AFAIK Shia doesn't specifically ban all images outright, but instead relies on context. For example, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)* - Sunni Islam bans all images of him and other prophets, while Shia Islam might allow some images as a reference to him or other prophets as historical figures such as Jesus, Adam, Moses, David, etc... which they undoubtedly are. That's why some images of prophets are basically a white outline surrounded by fire, or a figure with a veil over their face. As long as you aren't defaming or purposely offending the religion, it's frowned upon in most cases, but not explicitly banned due to the historical context - humanity, after all, did and does rely on images instead of words at times and did so when most people were illiterate but could understand images. As long as the prophets aren't made into idols or worshiped or defamed, and are illustrated for historic context in a non defaming way, it's OK, sometimes.
*I say this while not Muslim to avoid the notion that I am purposely offending Islam - I'm not.
It's also not uncommon to depict e.g. Ali with a face. Sunni salafist movements are the ones that are fanatically against such art, and they are quite savvy with propaganda and backed by very powerful friends on the peninsula and elsewhere, such as the backers of the Gulf dictatorships in London and Washington.
In 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.
This 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.
I 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
(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).
Yes, the prayer rug is not sacred, per se, but it can be embued with a measure of sacredness by our practices upon it.
Please know that Zikr (remembering/repeating one of the many Names of God) is the highest form of worship. (Zikr is commanded three times in the Quran-i-Kerim.)
Al-lah, Yah-weh, Di-os, De-us, Brah-man, ...
Many Names in our various languages for the one Creator, one human race, one religion of God: compassionate service to all mankind that comes in many forms across our planet's cultures and epochs.
Always love. Teach to always love. Never hate. Teach to never hate.
Yeah I think the author of this article had some subjective understanding and experience. I don't mean to diminish it but it's definitely something I and other (but not all) Muslims find foreign
One 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.
That whole bundle of traditions - prayer times, prayer directions, prayer accessories, etc predates Islam if for no other reason than that Islam is comparatively new. But the cross-pollination could have easily happened more than once and in both directions.
Even Muslims do not claim their religion is completely novel. The rituals may differ, but the creed preached by Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) is the same preached by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, John, Jesus, and countless other prophets (peace be upon them all): worship The One True God (Allah, Yahweh) with no partners.
As far as prayer rugs and other accessories, those are not actually part of our rituals as Muslims. Some people use them for practical purposes (prayer rugs help you avoid prostrating on dirt, asphalt, a potentially unclean carpet, etc. and prayer beads make it easier to keep count), while some others may have cultural reasons, and some just want to enhance their spiritual experience (e.g. incense and perfume).
Muslims say that Islam _was_ the religion of all the prophets you've mentioned. Because of this they also believe that Islam is the _oldest_ religion, since Adam, the first man, followed Islam.
“Islam” as a named religion with its own prescribed rituals and laws is specific to the message preached in Arabia in the 7th century.
“Muslim” is a more transcendent term that encompasses all the prophets mentioned in the Quran, as well as those not mentioned. Their creed and state of mind (absolute submission to God’s will) is the same, but they did not follow a religion called “Islam”. Earlier prophets and their followers prayed, fasted, and gave charity. Some even made the pilgrimage to Makkah. However, certain details of these rituals may have differed between them and today’s Islam, and between one another.
For completeness to the reader, the creed preached by Jesus is historically very different.
Rejection of Jesus’s Divinity:
• Islam acknowledges Jesus (Isa) as a prophet but explicitly denies His divinity or status as the Son of God. The Qur’an states: “He [Jesus] was no more than a servant: We granted Our favor to him” (Qur’an 43:59).
• The Qur’an emphasizes that Jesus did not die on the cross but was raised to heaven by God (Qur’an 4:157-158).
Etc., etc.
Islam historically reinterpreted Jesus and rejects the accounts of the first followers of Christ (the Church Fathers circa 100-300 AD).
This is not by any means a “complete” picture. There was no consensus that Jesus is divine, or about the nature of his alleged divinity, even after the declaration in 325 of the Nicene Creed - from which 5 bishops abstained and were at least temporarily exiled. This NPR interview with a former Evangelical who later became a historian and wrote “How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee” is very illuminating:
> During his lifetime, Jesus himself didn't call himself God and didn't consider himself God, and ... none of his disciples had any inkling at all that he was God. ...
> You do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, or the last Gospel. Jesus says things like, "Before Abraham was, I am." And, "I and the Father are one," and, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." These are all statements you find only in the Gospel of John, and that's striking because we have earlier gospels and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things.
> I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make. This is not an unusual view amongst scholars; it's simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understanding of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate.
> Right at the same time that Christians were calling Jesus "God" is exactly when Romans started calling their emperors "God." So these Christians were not doing this in a vacuum; they were actually doing it in a context. I don't think this could be an accident that this is a point at which the emperors are being called "God." So by calling Jesus "God," in fact, it was a competition between your God, the emperor, and our God, Jesus.
Especially monks and nuns do prostrations as part of their prayer rule. Some do hunderds, some do even thousands prostrations during their prayers. We use prayer rope when recitating Jesus Prayer[1]. Prayer rope helps count the prayers but also it gives your hands something to do while praying, so it's easier to focus. I usually have one in my pocket and I roll it in my hands secretly while in meetings or sometimes even during typing code. I don't really pray then but it reminds me of the spiritual reality and that my boring Teams-meetings and stupid Jira-tickets aren't the purpose of my life ;)
The widespread use of the prayer rope with jesus prayer in orthodoxy is very recent, like second half of 20th century. Both things are ancient but the rope was more associated with monastics and some specific balkan regions where they were popular. The jesus prayer has been common but the modern hesychastic application of it was basically practiced only by monks until JD salinger made the way of the pilgrim popular.
You hear about this practice a lot on the internet and it is very familiar to english-speaking converts but this practice is not typical among for example greeks christians in greece, or even most russians I don't think but I'm less clear on that.
> "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.’"
Prostrations 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.
There are variances in the traditions also here. In Russian tradition all the people in the Church do prostration during the eucharist prayers where wine and old are turned into Communion, and also before they partake the Communion. But in Greek tradition they don't do any prostrations during the liturgy. Prostrations aren't forbidden on Sundays but if you partake Eucharist you are not allowed to do prostration during that day.
there 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.
They'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.
Every Orthodox service I've been to we stood the entire time, though I never went on special holidays. My inner ex-Catholic wondered is it really church if I don't kneel and stand, kneel and stand, kneel and stand all through the service?
My Ukrainian ex had a worship space in a corner. It didn't have any rugs but had hauntingly beautiful hand painted icons. Maybe rugs are more of a thing in the old countries?
Practices in Orthodox services can differ. For example, in some Romanian parishes everyone has knelt while the Gospel was being read, but I have never seen this elsewhere. And as the other poster mentions, full prostrations are done (and widely across the Orthodox world) in certain contexts.
Some churches in Greece and Albania have pews -- the concept was brought back from the North American diaspora where Orthodox parishes were set up in former Protestant or Catholic church buildings -- so you can do all the standing, sitting, and kneeling you might be accustomed too.
Churches probably have some kind of theological explanation, but alternately kneeling, sitting, and standing is much better physiologically. Having a large and diverse group of people all stay in the same position for an extended period is very rough on their bodies, and some more than others. Periodically switching prevents injuries caused by maintaining too much static load for too long in any one place. Probably also helps keep everyone awake. For the same reasons it's a good idea to occasionally switch positions while working.
Loving God is not for God's benefit, but for ours. Our emanating love towards our Creator helps us emanate compassion for all our fellow human beings. It is the Greatest Command(ment), and the sole purpose of religion.
As such -- as you say -- changing positions is good for our body which helps us to be more physically comfortable in this magnificent machine. Happiness is God's desire for us, but It has given us the absolutely free will to choose happiness or its opposites. A prayerful life is for personal and societal growth towards selfless compassion for all others, and away from selfish callous disregard for others.
There are theological explanations but it is also explicitly taught that physical movement and awareness of your body is an important part of prayer, similar to how bells and incense ask you to include those senses.
Also there isn't a rule against sitting, orthodox churches have seats for people who need or want them and it's absolutely normal to see people sit for some or all of services. It is discouraged to notice who or wonder why.
As a rule, Orthodox don't kneel on Sundays. Usually, weeknights during Lent you will see kneeling and prostrations. On a weekday liturgy (mass, always done in the morning) people will usually kneel at least for the Lord's Prayer (this is in the US)
I believe the prayer rug comes from the Ottomans (uncited) who added prestige to the artifacts. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomons adopted the Roman (Byzantine) Orthodox Church's symbol () to represent Islam (Crescent and Star). They adopted the church dome and bell tower for architecture of the mosque called dome and minaret. And now it seems they also adopted the prayer rug.
(Fun anecdote: I traveled to Venice and the tour guide said the architecture of the St. Marks Basilica is different from the Catholic Churches of the rest of Italy as it resembles Islamic Architecture influences. Ha! It resembles Byzantine or Constantinople influences, not Islamic at all but quite similar.)
I 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.
Islam 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.
Can you please elaborate on 'representational art' in this context?
There's a _great_ book about that: 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)
In the context of Islam: art that depicts living things, especially humans.
From 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=T....
In 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.
Islamic 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.
>> That's usually enough to go through ones life.
Nit, perhaps, but relying on third parties to interpret the source material, and only learning what is supposedly permissible from secondary texts without learning how to engage with and argue over the subtler aspects of primary texts, is not much of a life. If you want to say it's enough for most people, you must expect most people to accomplish very little.
Guess my religious background.
> Guess my religious background.
Protestant? (Based on the emphasis on a personal experience of the text, unfiltered by mediators).
It's a larger discussion but not really HN material so I'll leave it at that
Only the Quran is guaranteed to be unchanged (but the interpretations and translations are not so guaranteed), the Hadiths are not.
The proper perspective is that if the Hadith and Quran are in conflict, the Quran is the authoratative source.
From our Sufi perspective, the Hadiths are a lot of game of telephone.
And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
> And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
Or, in practice, the opposite
>And if the Quran is difficult to apply, remember that compassion is the entire purpose of all God's religions.
Clearly a few of gods prophets dropped the ball pretty hard on this one. To bad he isn't interested in correcting the record.
It does and it doesn't.
AFAIK Shia doesn't specifically ban all images outright, but instead relies on context. For example, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)* - Sunni Islam bans all images of him and other prophets, while Shia Islam might allow some images as a reference to him or other prophets as historical figures such as Jesus, Adam, Moses, David, etc... which they undoubtedly are. That's why some images of prophets are basically a white outline surrounded by fire, or a figure with a veil over their face. As long as you aren't defaming or purposely offending the religion, it's frowned upon in most cases, but not explicitly banned due to the historical context - humanity, after all, did and does rely on images instead of words at times and did so when most people were illiterate but could understand images. As long as the prophets aren't made into idols or worshiped or defamed, and are illustrated for historic context in a non defaming way, it's OK, sometimes.
*I say this while not Muslim to avoid the notion that I am purposely offending Islam - I'm not.
Shiites often depict their important religious figures and martyrs, but with the face replaced with a bright glow.
Like this: https://www.deviantart.com/shia-ali/art/YA-ALI-343625919
It's also not uncommon to depict e.g. Ali with a face. Sunni salafist movements are the ones that are fanatically against such art, and they are quite savvy with propaganda and backed by very powerful friends on the peninsula and elsewhere, such as the backers of the Gulf dictatorships in London and Washington.
like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction...
Idolatry. Graven idols. That sort of thing. Hence geometry instead.
I remember my grandmother carting her prayer rug all the way from Bangladesh to the U.S. when she came to visit.
I look for this sort of thing whenever I travel, but it’s really hard to find.
In 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.
In all the years of using one I never thought it made anything sacred. It keeps my forehead clean and cushions my knees
This 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.
Interesting. TIL
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7469221.stm
I 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
(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
Yes, the prayer rug is not sacred, per se, but it can be embued with a measure of sacredness by our practices upon it.
Please know that Zikr (remembering/repeating one of the many Names of God) is the highest form of worship. (Zikr is commanded three times in the Quran-i-Kerim.)
Al-lah, Yah-weh, Di-os, De-us, Brah-man, ...
Many Names in our various languages for the one Creator, one human race, one religion of God: compassionate service to all mankind that comes in many forms across our planet's cultures and epochs.
Always love. Teach to always love. Never hate. Teach to never hate.
Yeah I think the author of this article had some subjective understanding and experience. I don't mean to diminish it but it's definitely something I and other (but not all) Muslims find foreign
Only 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.
Am I on a tech site?
Yes, you've been on here for all of 5 days.
One 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.
That whole bundle of traditions - prayer times, prayer directions, prayer accessories, etc predates Islam if for no other reason than that Islam is comparatively new. But the cross-pollination could have easily happened more than once and in both directions.
In fact the Muslims initially prayed towards Jerusalem (as did the Jews then and today) until revelation specifically turned them towards Mecca:
> "So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque in Mecca). And wherever you are, turn your faces toward it..."
Quran 2:144
Even Muslims do not claim their religion is completely novel. The rituals may differ, but the creed preached by Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) is the same preached by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Ismail, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, John, Jesus, and countless other prophets (peace be upon them all): worship The One True God (Allah, Yahweh) with no partners.
As far as prayer rugs and other accessories, those are not actually part of our rituals as Muslims. Some people use them for practical purposes (prayer rugs help you avoid prostrating on dirt, asphalt, a potentially unclean carpet, etc. and prayer beads make it easier to keep count), while some others may have cultural reasons, and some just want to enhance their spiritual experience (e.g. incense and perfume).
Muslims say that Islam _was_ the religion of all the prophets you've mentioned. Because of this they also believe that Islam is the _oldest_ religion, since Adam, the first man, followed Islam.
“Islam” as a named religion with its own prescribed rituals and laws is specific to the message preached in Arabia in the 7th century.
“Muslim” is a more transcendent term that encompasses all the prophets mentioned in the Quran, as well as those not mentioned. Their creed and state of mind (absolute submission to God’s will) is the same, but they did not follow a religion called “Islam”. Earlier prophets and their followers prayed, fasted, and gave charity. Some even made the pilgrimage to Makkah. However, certain details of these rituals may have differed between them and today’s Islam, and between one another.
For completeness to the reader, the creed preached by Jesus is historically very different.
Rejection of Jesus’s Divinity: • Islam acknowledges Jesus (Isa) as a prophet but explicitly denies His divinity or status as the Son of God. The Qur’an states: “He [Jesus] was no more than a servant: We granted Our favor to him” (Qur’an 43:59). • The Qur’an emphasizes that Jesus did not die on the cross but was raised to heaven by God (Qur’an 4:157-158).
Etc., etc.
Islam historically reinterpreted Jesus and rejects the accounts of the first followers of Christ (the Church Fathers circa 100-300 AD).
This is not by any means a “complete” picture. There was no consensus that Jesus is divine, or about the nature of his alleged divinity, even after the declaration in 325 of the Nicene Creed - from which 5 bishops abstained and were at least temporarily exiled. This NPR interview with a former Evangelical who later became a historian and wrote “How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee” is very illuminating:
https://www.npr.org/2014/04/07/300246095/if-jesus-never-call...
Excerpts:
> During his lifetime, Jesus himself didn't call himself God and didn't consider himself God, and ... none of his disciples had any inkling at all that he was God. ...
> You do find Jesus calling himself God in the Gospel of John, or the last Gospel. Jesus says things like, "Before Abraham was, I am." And, "I and the Father are one," and, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." These are all statements you find only in the Gospel of John, and that's striking because we have earlier gospels and we have the writings of Paul, and in none of them is there any indication that Jesus said such things.
> I think it's completely implausible that Matthew, Mark and Luke would not mention that Jesus called himself God if that's what he was declaring about himself. That would be a rather important point to make. This is not an unusual view amongst scholars; it's simply the view that the Gospel of John is providing a theological understanding of Jesus that is not what was historically accurate.
> Right at the same time that Christians were calling Jesus "God" is exactly when Romans started calling their emperors "God." So these Christians were not doing this in a vacuum; they were actually doing it in a context. I don't think this could be an accident that this is a point at which the emperors are being called "God." So by calling Jesus "God," in fact, it was a competition between your God, the emperor, and our God, Jesus.
It's all the Hanif Religion of Abraham, whose texts have been lost to time.
Compassion is the only purpose of all God's religions, and is the ultimate arbiter of our life's chosen actions.
I didn't know Orthodox Christians prostrated in their prayer much less use prayer rugs. Curious where this practice remains today.
Especially monks and nuns do prostrations as part of their prayer rule. Some do hunderds, some do even thousands prostrations during their prayers. We use prayer rope when recitating Jesus Prayer[1]. Prayer rope helps count the prayers but also it gives your hands something to do while praying, so it's easier to focus. I usually have one in my pocket and I roll it in my hands secretly while in meetings or sometimes even during typing code. I don't really pray then but it reminds me of the spiritual reality and that my boring Teams-meetings and stupid Jira-tickets aren't the purpose of my life ;)
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Prayer
The widespread use of the prayer rope with jesus prayer in orthodoxy is very recent, like second half of 20th century. Both things are ancient but the rope was more associated with monastics and some specific balkan regions where they were popular. The jesus prayer has been common but the modern hesychastic application of it was basically practiced only by monks until JD salinger made the way of the pilgrim popular.
You hear about this practice a lot on the internet and it is very familiar to english-speaking converts but this practice is not typical among for example greeks christians in greece, or even most russians I don't think but I'm less clear on that.
They 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.’"
Prostrations 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.
There are variances in the traditions also here. In Russian tradition all the people in the Church do prostration during the eucharist prayers where wine and old are turned into Communion, and also before they partake the Communion. But in Greek tradition they don't do any prostrations during the liturgy. Prostrations aren't forbidden on Sundays but if you partake Eucharist you are not allowed to do prostration during that day.
there 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.
They'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.
Every Orthodox service I've been to we stood the entire time, though I never went on special holidays. My inner ex-Catholic wondered is it really church if I don't kneel and stand, kneel and stand, kneel and stand all through the service?
My Ukrainian ex had a worship space in a corner. It didn't have any rugs but had hauntingly beautiful hand painted icons. Maybe rugs are more of a thing in the old countries?
Practices in Orthodox services can differ. For example, in some Romanian parishes everyone has knelt while the Gospel was being read, but I have never seen this elsewhere. And as the other poster mentions, full prostrations are done (and widely across the Orthodox world) in certain contexts.
Some churches in Greece and Albania have pews -- the concept was brought back from the North American diaspora where Orthodox parishes were set up in former Protestant or Catholic church buildings -- so you can do all the standing, sitting, and kneeling you might be accustomed too.
Churches probably have some kind of theological explanation, but alternately kneeling, sitting, and standing is much better physiologically. Having a large and diverse group of people all stay in the same position for an extended period is very rough on their bodies, and some more than others. Periodically switching prevents injuries caused by maintaining too much static load for too long in any one place. Probably also helps keep everyone awake. For the same reasons it's a good idea to occasionally switch positions while working.
Loving God is not for God's benefit, but for ours. Our emanating love towards our Creator helps us emanate compassion for all our fellow human beings. It is the Greatest Command(ment), and the sole purpose of religion.
As such -- as you say -- changing positions is good for our body which helps us to be more physically comfortable in this magnificent machine. Happiness is God's desire for us, but It has given us the absolutely free will to choose happiness or its opposites. A prayerful life is for personal and societal growth towards selfless compassion for all others, and away from selfish callous disregard for others.
it is all things but diverse
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_the_Middle_...
There are theological explanations but it is also explicitly taught that physical movement and awareness of your body is an important part of prayer, similar to how bells and incense ask you to include those senses.
Also there isn't a rule against sitting, orthodox churches have seats for people who need or want them and it's absolutely normal to see people sit for some or all of services. It is discouraged to notice who or wonder why.
As a rule, Orthodox don't kneel on Sundays. Usually, weeknights during Lent you will see kneeling and prostrations. On a weekday liturgy (mass, always done in the morning) people will usually kneel at least for the Lord's Prayer (this is in the US)
I believe the prayer rug comes from the Ottomans (uncited) who added prestige to the artifacts. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottomons adopted the Roman (Byzantine) Orthodox Church's symbol () to represent Islam (Crescent and Star). They adopted the church dome and bell tower for architecture of the mosque called dome and minaret. And now it seems they also adopted the prayer rug.
(Fun anecdote: I traveled to Venice and the tour guide said the architecture of the St. Marks Basilica is different from the Catholic Churches of the rest of Italy as it resembles Islamic Architecture influences. Ha! It resembles Byzantine or Constantinople influences, not Islamic at all but quite similar.)