Comparison of Four Prayers
A Druze Prayer of Thanks and Praises
To God Blessings are due to God who made us feel God’s presence with
our hearts everywhere we go. Thanks to you, our God, for making
contemplation of You a medium for the happiness and settledness of souls;
you always quench our thirst with peace and reflection. All praises are
yours, oh Soul of our souls.
Baha’i Short Obligatory Prayer
I Bear witness, O my God, that You hast created me to know You and to
worship You. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Your
might, to my poverty and to Your wealth. There is no other God but you,
the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Baha’u’llah.
Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 36
Islamic Call to Prayer
God is most great. God is most great.
God is most great. God is most great.
I testify that there is no god except God.
I testify that there is no god except God.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Come to prayer! Come to prayer!
Come to success (in this life and the Hereafter)!
Come to success!
God is most great. God is most great.
There is no god except God.
The Shema
Listen Israel: The Eternal our God, The Eternal is One.
Haifa—Comparing Religion—1
The Baha’i Faith
History
The Bahai Faith has its origins in an older religion called Babism. In 1844 Mirza
Ali Muhammad declared himself to be the Bab, the guide to divine truth. The Bab
predicted that in nineteen years another prophet who embodied God would come.
Mirza Hussayn Ali Nuri saw himself as the realization of that prophecy. He had at first
been a follower of Bab but took the name Baha’ullah at the death of Bab in 1850.
The followers of the Bab experienced a lot of persecution and wound up in Acco, near
Haifa. In 1863 Baha’ullah said that he was the last embodiment of God, the last in a
list that includes Zarathustra, Buddha, Krishna (Hinudism), Jesus, and Mohammed.
Today
Today there are two to five million Baha’is in the world (Baha’i itself claims more than
five million, but observers sometimes estimate the number as low as two million). The
headquarters of the religion is on Mount Carmel, near Haifa. Here there is a shrine to
Bab, a grand archive, and the world administrative center. The tomb of Baha’ullah is in
the nearby city of Acco.
Baha’i Faith Baha’i is a universal religion. It calls for better social conditions for the
underprivileged, mutual love, harmony between races and religions, equality of the
sexes, one language for all, one education for all, and one religion that takes the
essence from all the larger religions. Baha’is want people to feel happy. There are
no priests; the only official spiritual leader is the Guardian of the Faith, who was a
descendant of Baha’ullah. Now that role is an elected leader of the religion. There are
no rituals. The writings of Baha’ullah and Abdu l-Baha’ (his son) are the only sacred
texts.
Baha’ís believe in an afterlife in which the soul is separated from the body. At death,
according to the Baha’í faith, the soul begins a spiritual journey toward God through
many planes of existence. Progress on this journey toward God is likened to the idea
of heaven. If the soul fails to develop, one remains distant from God. This condition
of remoteness from God can in some sense be understood as hell. Thus Baha’ís do not
regard heaven and hell as literal places but as different states of being during one’s
spiritual journey toward or away from God.
2—Haifa—Comparing Religion
Druze Religion
Druze in
Israel
The Druze community in Israel is officially recognized as a separate religious entity
with its own courts (with jurisdiction in matters of personal status, marriage, divorce,
maintenance and adoption) and spiritual leadership. Their culture is Arab and their
language Arabic, but in 1948 they opted against Arab nationalism and have since
served (first as volunteers, later within the draft system) in the Israeli Defense Forces
(IDF) and the Border Police.
History
In 1017 the Druze religion was established in Cairo. The religion gets its name from
one of the earliest followers of Caliph al-Hakim, Muhammadu d-Darazi. While the
Druze are not considered Muslims by other Muslims, they regard themselves as
Muslims as well as carriers of the core of this Islam. Even so the Quran does not seem
to be a part of their religion. The Druze call themselves muwahhidun, “monotheists”.
Druze
Religion
The Druze consider their faith to be a new interpretation of the three monotheistic
religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In their understanding Adam was not
the first human being, but the first person to believe in one God. Their mentors and
prophets come from all three religions and include Jethro and Moses, John the Baptist
and Jesus, Salman the Persian, and Mohammed. In addition, the Druze consider
other influential people as advocates of justice and belief in one God. These include
the Egyptian Akhenaton, the Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and
Alexander the Great.
The main idea of Druze religion is that God became the human Fatmid Caliph alHakim. While most Muslims believe he died in 1021, the Druze disagree and believe
that al-Hakim is waiting to return to the world in order to bring a new golden age to
true believers. Druze believe in one God and claim that the qualities of God cannot be
understood or defined by humans.
Central in the Druze world system is the belief in reincarnation, through which all
souls are reborn as humans, good as well as bad. Good people have a more fortunate
rebirth than bad people. Behind this system is the belief that humans cannot reach
perfection and unite with God.
Secret
Religion
Most Druze know only parts of their religion’s theology, and they are referred to as
juhhal, “ignorants.” One out of fifty members of the uqqal reach as high as perfection,
and are called ‘ajawid, “noble,” and work as the real leaders of the Druze religion. The
juhhal perform few of the typical Muslim rituals; prayer is not performed in mosques;
a fast is not performed during the Muslim month of Ramadan; and there are no
obligations to perform the hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage. Druze abstain from wine,
tobacco, and pork. The Druze religion is secret and closed to converts.
Haifa—Comparing Religion—3
Islam
Muhammed
and Mecca
At the age of forty in 610 C.E. Muhammed was given in Mecca a revelation from
Allah through the angel Gabriel. A second revelation followed some years later, in
the city of Medina. Over time these messages were transcribed and collected into
what became the Quran, though it was not completed until 652. Gabriel told him
to preach the content of what he had heard to the warring tribes of Mecca and the
Arabian Peninsula because it might unify them. Mohammed developed a “political”
constitution for Islam in which the tribes of Arabia were united into the community
of Islam and became a theocratic state—a state for all practical purposes ruled by the
will of God as made clear in the Quran. These laws compose the Sharia, the legal code
of Islam.
Islam
Any observant, devout Muslim will tell you that all of Islam is summarized and
contained within its basic creedal statement, often referred to as the great confession,
the Shahada. It is spoken in Arabic “Ilaha illa Allah. Muhammad rasul Allah,” and in
English it translates to “There is no god but Allah. Muhammed is the messenger of
God.” For all practical purposes Muslims believe that to say these words and mean
themthem is to convert to Islam, and that to say them is what makes a Muslim a
Muslim.
Prophets are real people; they have been sent to deliver God’s message, and for
the most part, Islam accepts the teachings of the major prophets of Judaism and
Christianity. Islam is especially fond of Abraham and Jesus, but it is also careful to
say that Jesus is not God or the Son of God; only Allah can be God. Though there is an
Islamic tradition that recognizes some 124,000 prophets throughout previous history,
the Big Six other than Muhammed himself are Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
and Jesus.
Though Muslims believe in most parts of the ancient books of Judaism and
Christianity, they also believe that these books and scrolls have become corrupted,
misinterpreted, and re-interpreted time and time again. Nor are there any original
texts remaining to indicate what they might have said when they were pure. As a
result, for Islam, only the Quran is complete, without error, and perfectly clear. It is
the unquestioned and perfect word of God. It is, as is sometimes said, “the last word.”
* Belief in Allah as the one and only God
Muslims
have six
* Belief in angels
main beliefs
* Belief in the holy books
* Belief in the Prophets—e.g., Adam, Ibrahim (Abraham), Musa (Moses), Dawud
(David), Isa (Jesus). Muhammad is the final prophet
* Belief in the Day of Judgment., the day when the life of every human being will be
assessed to decide whether he or she will go to heaven or hell
* Belief in that Allah has already decided what will happen. Muslims believe that this
doesn’t stop human beings from making free choices.
4—Haifa—Comparing Religion
Islam
The Five
Pillars of
Islam
The “five pillars” are the core of Muslim practice.
1) Faith: There is no god worthy of worship except God, and Muhammad is God’s
messenger. This declaration of faith is called the Shahada.
2) Prayer: Salat is the name for the required prayers that are performed five times
a day. The prayers are led by a learned person and contain verses from the Quran.
Prayers are said at dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and nightfall. Although it is
preferable to worship in a mosque, a Muslim may pray almost anywhere.
3) The Zakat. The word zakat means both ”purification” and “growth” but is the
equivalent of the Hebrew tzedakah, charity (righteous giving). Possessions are
purified by setting aside a proportion for those in need; and like the pruning of plants,
this cutting back balances and encourages new growth. Each Muslim calculates his
or her own zakat individually. For most purposes this involves the payment each
year of two and a half percent of one’s wealth. 4) The Fast: Every year in the month of
Ramadan Muslims fast from first light until sundown, abstaining from food, drink,
and sexual relations. Children begin to fast during puberty, although many start
earlier. Even though the fast is thought beneficial to health, it is regarded principally
as a method of self-purification. By cutting oneself off from worldly comforts a fasting
person is thought to gain true sympathy with those who go hungry as spiritual
growth.
5) Pilgrimage (Hajj): The annual pilgrimage to Mecca. About two million people go
to Mecca each year from all over the world. Pilgrims wear special clothes: simple
garments that strip away distinctions of class and culture so that all stand equal
before God. The rites of the Hajj, which are of Abrahamic origin, include circling the
Ka’ba (black stone) seven times and going seven times between the mountains of Safa
and Marwa, as did Hagar during her search for water.
Haifa—Comparing Religion—5
Religion Comparison Chart
Judaism
How many Gods?
Major Prophets
Holy Book
Religious Leader
Afterlife
6—Haifa—Comparing Religion
druze religon
Baha’i Faith
islam