The full spectrum about prayers need to be discussed

Submitted by Prashant (United States), Jun 2, 2015 at 00:13

Dear Dr Pipes,

Regarding the case of NJ 7th grader who demanded and got a place to pray during the lunch hour, her needs to pray may be fully justified but the entire spectrum of how different people pay their thanks and respect to God and praise Him also need to be discussed. A lot of spiritual people say their prayers to God silently and quietly. In my religion (Hinduism) in particular, temples are often in people's homes and prayers/meditations at home are encouraged. Congregational prayers are occasionally done (actually done more often than welcome) but they are not mandatory and they certainly do not occur five times a day 365 days a year. Meditative and self-reflective worship is also very well appreciated in Christianity and Judaism. I humbly suggest that if your worship becomes an disruption to others, you need to think again.

My fear is that relatively moderate practitioners of non-Islamic religions find a lot of common ground among themselves and Islam/Muslims are getting left behind.

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