Imam Abdullah Antepli.
Muslim Chaplain, Duke University
HuffpostReligion

Most, if not all religions, function in the world of symbolism and communicate their universal messages to their followers through these religious symbols. Rituals, sacraments, prayers, worship services, religious ceremonies and more are nothing but to invite believers to engage with very deep ethical, moral and spiritual teachings through set of symbols and symbolic acts and behaviors. These religious symbols are never meant to be goals as themselves but vehicles and agents to much higher ultimate goals. If one does not get lost in the actual practice of these religious symbolic acts but constantly strives to get connected and feed him or herself with the deep teachings beneath these acts, he or she could develop a healthy spirituality, strong ethical and moral values, righteousness and more. However, it is one of the most common human weaknesses to easily get disconnected from what those religious symbols have been trying to teach us and keep practicing them as a form of habit or regular task that we feel obliged to do.

Islam, through its foundational texts (Holy Quran and Sunnah), and daily, monthly and annual rituals and practices, offers one of the richest such worlds of pedagogy of symbols to Muslims. Every Islamic ritual and practice is an invitation for the believers to commit themselves to a process of increasing purity, tranquility and peace in their internal and external world. This khutba is an invitation for me and to all to strive to live Islam meaningfully and purposefully by paying attention to the language of those religious symbols.

Let me discuss several such central Islamic symbols in this regard. What is religiously more central, for believing and practicing Muslims, than five daily prayers in their lives? We stop and pause five times a day, every day through out our adult lives to pray. Wherever we may be, Muslim men and women rush to the water tabs, take our ritual ablution (Wudu), spread our prayer rugs toward the proper direction, and then stand, bow and prostrate before God Almighty five times a day, every day of the year. Every single step of these five daily prayers are nothing but a series of Islamic symbols and in high volumes talks to us about the ethical moral teachings of our beautiful religion. We should not fail to pay attention to their voices as we practice these Islamic rituals. Otherwise they will turn into voiceless, repetitive acts of useless traditionalism.

Let’s start reflecting on our ritual ablution practices that we do before we pray. We wash our hands, wash our mouths, our arms unto our elbows, clean the dust on our heads and wash our ears and feet. The purpose of this symbolic cleansing is not only for our physical hygiene and health but more importantly to engage in a conversation and prayers of thanksgiving and forgiveness with God Almighty and with ourselves. If we pay attention to the meaning of the prayers we say during this ritual bath, the believer in effect says, as she or he washes each and every body part in that process, “Thank you merciful God for this healthy hand, mouth, tongue, eyes, nose, ears and feet. Their health is from you as you are the source of all blessings. Empower and guide me to do good things with them and I ask forgiveness for the wrong things that I have done or might have done with them.” These ritualistic symbols are there to make the believers slow down and remember if he/she might have said something hurtful or have done anything ethically, morally questionable with his/her hands, eyes, ears, feet and so on since the last prayer. These Islamic symbols are there to clean and purify and improve us internally, spiritually, ethically and morally if we can constantly engage and pay attention to their symbolic language and voice.

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