Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners
Dr. Warren Larson delivered a lecture on Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners during a CIU course. Here, Larson presents some certain Folk Islamic practices and their implications in their beliefs for those who practice them.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Dr. Warren Larson Lecture: Folk Islam on Practices and Practitioners.
You’re not gonna believe some of this stuff, but I, I, you know, as we get into lecture 11 here, comparisons, practices, which is practices and practitioners, It sort of strikes me that it’s it’s hard to believe when you when you think about it, some of the things we’re talking about. In fact, it’s all a bit incredible, to, but in particular here in this lecture, practices and practitioners, again, we’re we’re dealing with comparisons and we’re gonna talk about the pillars of Islam. You know, everybody, if they know anything about Islam, knows the the 5 pillars of Islam that the Sunnis have: the confession of faith, the ritual prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage, but the thing that’s interesting is that these 5 pillars mean something else to, to in popular Islam. In other words, they have another purpose. First of all, the confession of faith drives away, you know, the confession of faith.
There is no other god but Allah, and Really, it is, you know, it’s a declaration in Orthodox Islam of of the oneness of God, monotheism, strict monotheism and the apostleship of Muhammad, but, it’s it’s it’s there. I just wanted to, refer you to a little, an account of some of our students working in Africa, and this is what they said. They said, stepping out my front gate, I met some neighbor kids on their way home from a religious school right behind our house, and, listen to the sound clip for an experience of what we hear throughout the day. Following close behind their greeting was a request for me to do something I will never do. Say the shahada.
That’s the, Muslim profession of faith. No. I can’t. I follow Jesus Christ, I said. No, say it.
This is what you say. And so they’re this is, what they were trying to pressure, this young couple, this young fellow to do, who’s one of our students. And they have I remember them trying, to to get me to say the Shahidah too as if that would make me a Muslim, but I just wanted to, alert you to the fact that the Shahidah, confession of faith, is, more than just a statement of there is no other god but god and Muhammad is the apostle, but, confession of faith drives away evil spirits. Prayer? Well, confession of faith and then ritual prayer 5 times a day is, interesting as well.
You know, that that ablution is is almost more important in some context than the prayer itself. The ablution, to get is not to is, you know, is not bodily purity, but get you free from the demons. It’s not worship. It’s not bodily purity, but it’s free from the influence of evil spirits, and you begin with your ablutions on the right side. If there’s no water available, then sand can be a substitute.
Your head is covered and this could be, a tradition that you get from the Talmud, but so that the spirits won’t enter your mind and a sutra or a stone or a stick, and you can, Google this and find pictures of where Muslims will put a if they’re out in the desert, they’ll put a stick in front to protect from demons. And it might say that this is, to, you know, to stop any, influence other distractions and so on. There’s also this in the mosque, but, really, my understanding is in some understanding quite a bit of understanding is that it was is to keep, to protect you, the Muslim, from the demons, and and I meant to bring, Muslim a Muslim along in volume 4 in page 190 through 94. I didn’t didn’t think of it, forgot to bring it. One more book to bring.
Another thing is is that, Muslims will stand right together. You know, there’s no gap among the worshipers lest Satan squeeze in. The Imwezin, that’s the guy who gives the call to prayer, that call drives away Satan and demons. Even the takbir, Allahuakbar, god is great, is a cry against the demons. When reading the Quran, you take refuge against, Satan, shaitan, and sneezing during prayer is, ominous because it gives Satan the chance to get in.
You see, it puts a whole new slant on the, 5 pillars, doesn’t it? Totally. And, what about almsgiving? You know, good thing to give alms. There’s no question about it.
Except I am convinced from what I’ve read and also from what I’ve experienced that people give alms oftentimes so that someone will not put a curse on them. You know, if you’re in the bazaar in Pakistan and a an old older woman I’m not gonna call her an old woman, but, sometimes older women are desperate conditions and, they look evil, I suppose, for various reasons, and they come up and they beg. They grab a hold of you, and they don’t let go. And, oftentimes, you’ll see people will give to them because these older women have the gift, it is thought, to put a curse on you, use the evil eye, put a curse on you, so you give to them to prevent that. You see that, that that shows gives almsgiving in a totally different light.
And what about fasting? Well, fasting to protect against diseases and the pilgrimage as we’ve already talked about a good deal, in order to get the blessing from touching or kissing the black stone and on and on and on. So, the purpose or the meaning of each pillar in Islam changes. Now the devil supposedly spends the night in your nose, and I was going to, bring, Al Muslim along and read out of that. So what do you do in the morning?
You snuff out your nose three times. And I think back of some of my own experiences, listening to people early in the morning and by the pump, you know, the hand pump, they can make more noise, coughing and spitting, and so I’m not surprised. I mean, this does make sense that that that, they’re they’re making so much noise to get rid of Satan. Snuff it out. Now, let me also hear, I think, is, I I’ve referred to the hadith several times, but here is the website that I mentioned to you before.
It’s http, colon/www.searchtruth dotcom. That’s httpcolon/www.searchtruth.com. You can go in there and you can do search, do a search on, the devil in your nose or something like that. And, hopefully, you will be able to pull up these stuff, because, presumably, you don’t have the hadith at your fingertips, but it is online. Now, here’s a question here.
Are there Islamic aspects where form and meaning are inseparable? Of course, this this, question comes out because of contextualization, you know, that if we can just change the meaning, we can use some of the Islamic forms. I think that’s true. There’s nothing wrong with bowing and prostrating when we prayed, not did our prayers, but when we prayed in Pakistan every morning with a bunch of people, some of whom were Muslim converts, We would get on our knees and we would, you know, we would bow, sometimes holding our head to the floor. That’s great.
I think it’s a good sign. It’s a very humble and a position of thoughtfulness and humility and of need, but I think that the, the ablutions, if you were to import and and implement ablutions, I think it’s going too far because the ablutions are so filled with with wrong meaning, and I’ve just talked a little bit about them, that I don’t think that you can, you know, always pour a new meaning into some of these practices. Now here’s a chart that is an interesting chart, I think, because it shows, it’s out of Bill Musk and used with permission, that it shows, the practitioners of popular Islam who are below the line. You might have this book, so you it won’t be anything new to you. But if you don’t have it, you will have to listen very carefully.
There’s a lot on the chart. And then above the line are the practitioners of Ideal Islam. So these are the practitioners of Ideal and Popular Islam. There is another thing here, less power to more power, meaning that the further you get to the right, the more power is needed. So up here, it’s also another thing that says, you know, from center, meaning things that are more, I guess, accepted to things that are less accepted to the periphery.
For instance, sorcery is, more of, on a margin more on the margins than some of the other stuff that they do Muslims do. Well, let’s just talk about some of the things that both practitioners of Ideal Islam and practitioners of, Folk Islam might be doing. For instance, charms or talismans. Down here, they’re called Dua writers or prayer writers. So the Dua writer in Folk Islam does basically some of the same things that a lot of Muslims, clerics, even in the city, will do this, but that’s not all they do.
As you get into more into the villages, these village clerics, these imams, do more of, these practices than than anyone. I mean, really. So, you you can get down charms, talismans, curing by herbs, curing by divination, fortune telling, exorcism, magic, and sorcery. So you see you’re going down the line here. Notice that, you’ve got the dua writer, the prayer writer, the midwife, the magician, the shaman, the sorcerer.
We notice that the mid that the women in folk Islam are quite active. It’s interesting that in formal Islam, they have been pressed down and and in other words, not really given a place of leadership. They don’t have they can go to the mosque, but they really don’t have a part in it. And most of the time, they don’t go to the mosque unless you’re in Southern California, but many places in the world, the Muslim women do not go to the mosque. But in Folk Islam, they have had, they’ve they’ve had some influence and, the midwife is, uses various and sundry powers.
We noticed the other day, that just in the use of an egg, for instance, they so they have they do use this stuff, divination, I think you’re getting into now a village clerk, cleric, an imam, would be more into that kind of stuff in the villages than, imam in the city. Fortune telling, yes, exorcism, more the village cleric will be into that kind of thing, magic and sorcery. So, you see there you have it. They are, they are there are is quite a bit of of overlap here, isn’t there? And this is an interesting chart that, isn’t foolproof, but, it’s something that that Muslims, are into, and, it doesn’t show it does really doesn’t show there’s a whole lot of of, distinction sometimes.