The beauty of Muslims' prayer

"Last Friday, after the dawn prayer, I stood outside a mosque on a remote mountain in New Mexico. The planet Mars shone like an aircraft coming in to land. But silence reigned: the dawn was, as the Koran puts it, breathing. The trees and stars were, in its words, prostrate before God.

The Muslim life is shaped by acts of prayer which, in turn, are shaped by the movements of the solar system, and the rolling of the planet beneath our feet. A sense of harmony, we hope, is the result. Science can alienate us from the holiness of nature. It can teach us how to destroy nature. But we should thank it too, for giving us more reasons to feel awe, humility, and even gratitude."

Abdal-Hakim Murad