الله أكبر لااله الا اللهالحمد لله سبحان الله

“Subhan'Allāh Alhambulillah La ilaha illa-llah Allāhu Akbar…”

“God is pure, Thanks be to God, God is one, God is great…"

In Arabic, we stumbled through this prayer over and over, the 99 beads in our hands keeping track of the praise due to God.

For the past few weeks, life here has been defined, altered, and centered around Ramadan. This Holy Month celebrates the beginning of the revelation of the Koran, and is a time for Muslims around the world to refocus, dedicating their lives to fasting, charity, prayer, and devotion to God.

Last night my friend Arazoo invited us to accompany her to the mosque to pray. We left our sandals and preconceptions at the door, and attempted to mimic everything she did.

“Subhan'Allāh Alhambulillah La ilaha illa-llah Allāhu Akbar…”

Joining hundreds of women repeatedly standing, bowing, kneeling, and prostrating before our God, I’ve never experienced such a connection between my body and my prayers. I know in my heart that’s as it always should be; my actions in tune with my prayers. But would repeating these prayers and set motions over and over, hundreds of thousands of times throughout life cause these motions to become just that… going through the motions?

After prayer, and bombardment with welcomes and kind smiles from many women, we strolled to a nearby ice cream shop, discussing devotion over soft serve.

“When you say prayers 100 times, God adds a tree to your garden in heaven,” Arazoo told us. “And when you say them during Ramadan, he builds villa for you.”

Alex asked, “What color villa do you want?”

Arazoo laughed and smiled, “I don’t care about villa. I just want to more love for God. Because he loves me.”

Even though our prayers look different and sound different, we have the most important words in common; “because he loves me.” We both have so much to learn from each other… of different words we can use to praise God, and of how big he is, and of how patient he is when we think we have him figured out.

It is far, far from my place to judge if communal, organized prayer is “going through the motions.” More importantly, in whatever place I’m in, I hope both my words and my actions express adoring devotion like Arazoo’s, so that my life repeats,

“God is pure, Thanks be to God, God is one, God is Great…”