Islam

Basic requirements for believers

The five pillars of Islam are:

• fivefold daily prayer (namaz),
• recognition that there is no God except Allah (shahad),
• month of mandatory fast (Ramadan),
• pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) * annual tax (zakat).

Calendar

Ramadan - fasting month

Ramadan is a month of compulsory Muslim fasting.

The Muslim calendar is based on the lunar calendar, so each year the timing of the beginning and end of Ramadan changes.

Fasting in Islam is one of the strictest of all world religions. The main ban provides for the refusal to eat food and even water in the daytime. To be more precise, it is impossible to drink from sukhur to iftar.

Sukhur is the first meal. Breakfast is advisable until the first signs of dawn, when the morning dawn is not yet visible. It is generally accepted that sukhur should be performed as early as possible, then Allah will reward the believer.

Iftar is the second and last meal. Dinner follows evening prayers as the sun lurks beyond the horizon.

The most obvious ban during the month of Ramadan is associated with the refusal of food and water, but, in addition, Muslims are prohibited during daylight hours:

• smoking or sniffing tobacco, including smoking hookah;
• swallow any sputum that has entered the mouth, as it is already considered a drink;
• specifically provoke vomiting.

At the same time, Muslims are allowed to post:

• take medicines through injections (including getting vaccinated);
• bathing (provided that water does not enter the mouth);
• kissing (but nothing more);
• brush your teeth (you cannot swallow water, of course);
• swallowing saliva;
• donate blood.

It is not considered a violation of fasting accidental ingress of food or water into the mouth.

During the holy month, it is especially sinful to violate the basic prohibitions of religion. Islam does not accept the use of alcohol and pork, regardless of whether it is done during the day or at night.

At sunset on the night after the end of the month of Ramadan, believers celebrate the holiday of conversation - Uraza Bayram.

Eid al-Fitr

Muslims celebrate Uraza Bayram (Arabic: Eid al-Fitr), marking the end of the month of Ramadan. Muslims believe that Uraza Bayram offered to celebrate the prophet Muhammad. This happened in 622, when the prophet Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina.

Since then, the celebration of Uraza Bayram as the end of the holy month of Ramadan has become an important part of Islamic culture. The traditions of the holiday may differ slightly depending on the country.

In Uraza Bayram, believers are obliged to report for the past post, as well as begin to serve their sentences for its violations. Before the holiday, you need to forgive each other's grievances, try to visit your relatives and acquaintances, asking them for forgiveness.

On the eve of Uraza Bairam, Muslims pay alms of conversation - zakat al-fitra. It is mandatory for every Muslim who has property that exceeds his basic needs. Alms are passed on to the poor directly or through Islamic charities.

On the day of the holiday, it is considered for the benefit of getting up early in the morning, bathing, dressing neatly and smartly, using incense, being friendly with everyone.

In Uraza Bairam, Muslims perform a festive prayer - id-namaz. After it, believers celebrate Uraza Bayram with their families, visit the graves of loved ones, and visit relatives.

During the holidays, the special generosity and attention of the head of the family to his spouse, children and other family members is encouraged. In Uraza Bairam, you cannot do household chores (except cooking), hard physical labor, quarrel, allow bad thoughts, slander.

Gifts are a mandatory attribute of the holiday. As a rule, they give the Koran, religious objects, dishes, home decor, sweets, dried fruits and desserts.

Special attention is paid to young children. They organize different entertainment for them, give gifts. This is due to the Muslim belief that the joy of the child brings the believer closer to Allah.

Sufism

Mehfil y Sama

Mehfil-i-Sam (Turkish: Sema) from the Arabic word "hearing" - a meeting for [spiritual] hearing. It is a Sufi ceremony that often includes singing, playing musical instruments, dancing, reading poetry and prayers, wearing symbolic robes.

The origin of Sama in the order of the Mevlevi Sufis is attributed to Rumi, the Sufi master and creator of this order. Once Rumi was walking around the city market when he heard the rhythmic banging of hammers. Rumi is believed to have heard a dhikr, "la ilaha illallah" or, "No God but Allah," when the submamteria were processing gold, and was so fascinated that he stretched out both arms and began to rotate in a circle (Sufi circling).

Sufis performing Sama before Sheikh Nizam ad-Din Aulia. Miniature from the Timurid copy of Hamsa Amir Khosrov. Herat, 1485.

It itself is a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through reason and love of perfection. By addressing the truth, a follower grows through love, abandons his ego, and finds the truth. He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity to love and serve all creation. Rumi said regarding Sama: "For those listening, it is this world itself and another. Even more so for the circle of dancers inside Sama who turn and have their own kaaba in the middle of them. " This connects Sama with the pilgrimage to Mecca, since both are intended to bring all those involved closer to God.

The goal of Sama is to achieve wadh, a state of ecstasy.

On 27 November 1235, Sufi saint Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki attended the Mehfil-e-Sama ceremony in Delhi, where poet Sheikh Ahmad-e-Jami sang the following poems:

Those killed by the dagger of the cessation of resistance;

Every moment gets a new life from the invisible.

Khwaja Bakhtiyar Kaki was so shocked by these verses that he lost consciousness. He died four days later, still in a state of ecstasy.

Muslims hold different views on the Sama ceremony and the use of music in general. Opponents, especially among Salafis/Wahhabis, are critical, while supporters, mostly among Shia, support Sama.

Islam in Russia

Council of Muftis of Russia

Mufti Ravil Gainutdin in 2010 received a warning about the inadmissibility of violating the legislation on countering extremist activities from the Moscow prosecutor's office. It turned out that the Council of Muftis invited to the international conference Russia "- Islamic World: Partnership for Stability" citizen Turkey Mustafa Sungur, who was a follower of the Russia banned extremist organization Nurjular.

The Council of Muftis and the Duma of the Russian Federation then reacted calmly to what happened, stating that "there was an unfortunate mistake" and they invited people to the conference "without thinking at all what the direction of their social activities was."

In 2018, Ravil Gainutdin, speaking on behalf of the Council of Muftis of Russia (of which he is also chairman) and the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims (DUM of the Russian Federation), indignantly opposed the proposal to recognize Wahhabism as extremist ideology, and Wahhabite organizations - extremist organizations due to the "obvious legal uncertainty" of this proposal.

Alexei Grishin, President of the Religion and Society Information and Analytical Center, explained the refusal of this kind by the fact that there are supporters of Wahhabism among the functionaries of the Council of Muftis of Russia.

He recalled Alexander Tikhomirov, better known as Said Buryatsky, a member of the Imarat Kavkaz terrorist association banned in Russia, who managed to work in the educational sphere of the Council of Muftis of Russia and preached even in the Moscow Cathedral Mosque, where since 1996 the residence of Mufti Ravil Gainutdin has been located and the Council of Muftis of Russia is located. Also mentioned was the imam of the Muslim community of Voronezh (part of the Council of Muftis) Mohammed Hassun, who in 2015 went to Syria to fight on the side of the Islamic State terrorist organization.

On September 16, 2024, it became known that the Islamic scholar Roman Silantyev, who has repeatedly criticized the activities of the Council of Muftis and the Duma of the Russian Federation in recent years, appealed to the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia Alexander Bastrykin with a request to ban the Spiritual Administration of Muslims, as well as the Council of Muftis of Russia, calling them "the most criminalized religious organizations of the country."

Silantyev motivated his statement by the fact that representatives of these organizations more often than others appear in the criminal chronicle, "despite the fact that they control no more than 9% of registered and no more than 7% of real Muslim communities in the country."

He claims that Ravil Gainutdin and his subordinates have repeatedly expressed support for Wahhabism and such organizations banned in Russia as Nurjular, Hizb ut-Tahrir, etc. Also, according to expert estimates, 41 representatives of the Council of Muftis and the Duma of the Russian Federation were brought to justice under extremist articles (inciting hatred, justifying and financing terrorism) and he believes that "the mass participation of not just ordinary members of the Council of Muftis - DUM of the Russian Federation, but spiritual leaders at the level of the mufti in crimes of an extremist and terrorist nature is a sufficient basis for recognizing these centralized organizations as extremist."

Islam in Africa

• Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) - Iran-backed Shiites

Notions of death

Graves of saints

Spirits of both saints and ordinary Muslims are present at the site of their burials. After death, the spirits of the aulia (saints) become even more powerful than before. For example, when someone reads a fatiha on the grave of a vali (saint), the spirit of the latter recognizes him. The dead can hear the living and communicate with them; there is an interactive connection between the dead and the living at the site of the grave (Sanyal 1996: 118-19). This connection with the saint's presence also allows the pilgrim to establish a genealogical connection with the Prophet.

Graves are places of historical memory and its connection with everyday life. These are places where communities are formed, where people talk about their daily problems, where rituals are developed and transmitted, where family pedigrees are recorded, where stories are told. These are also places of connection with spirits and other imaginary realities in the Gaiba, the realm of the invisible, through dreams and visions^[1].

See also

• Religion in Russia

Notes