In this lecture, Vivienne Stacey explores some of the similarities and differences between Muslim and Christian prayers. She includes practical tips and praying with and for Muslims. These lectures were given at Columbia International University in partnership with the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies. The Zwemer Center was founded in 1979 and exists to offer comprehensive courses on Islam, facilitate research, foster dialogues, offer seminars, conduct training, and provide resources for effective witness and ministry among Muslims. We also have a course study guide for these lectures that you might find helpful.
Here starts the auto-generated transcription of Vivienne Stacey’s Lecture on praying with and for Muslims:
In this session, we’re gonna think about Muslims and Christians at prayer. Here is a great link between us and Muslims. They are people of prayer, and we are people of prayer, And piety and devotion are part of everyday life for all Muslims, not all Muslims, perhaps, and not all Christians, perhaps. But piety and devotion are part of everyday life for every convinced Muslim and every convinced Christian. In Islam, we are, quite aware of the daily ritual.
You cannot live in a Muslim country without being aware of the daily ritual. You probably will be woken up by the call to prayer, and it’s at dawn. I try to discipline myself that whenever I hear the call to prayer, I pray for Muslims. I sometimes get so used to hearing the call to prayer and switching off in a way that I don’t always remember, but that’s what my my my ambition is, to pray 5 times a day for Muslims when I hear the call to prayer. The Muslim the call to prayer is chanted in Arabic.
It’s the call to prayer is actually called the Azaan. In Urdu, maybe it’s the azan in Arabic. I’m not sure, but azan, we say in Urdu, same word. It means call, call to prayer, but and the one who does it, he has an m in front of him, you see, his name and his title, if you like, Muezzin. See, it’s the same root, 3 radicals, but Mu’ezin is the one who gives the call, and he gives the call to the ezam.
Sometimes the text varies of what is called out according to whether the mosque is a Shia mosque or a Sunni mosque. When you’re going to a mosque, you it’s good if you know whether it’s Sunni or Shia. You’re going to a Shia mosque tomorrow, perhaps. No? Oh, yes.
A Sunni mosque. Yes. I did know that. Sorry. So you’re visiting a Sunni mosque.
Now here’s a translation in the paper that you’ve got in your handbook, about here’s one translation of the call to prayer. There’s a the last line of it is only used in the morning, but god is most great, and that’s said 4 times. In the in the previous study that we had about scripture or the program Mind, I kept on saying, God is great, so here it is. And 4 times in the call to prayer, so that’s 20 times a day, isn’t it? 4 times 5.
I testify there is no god but god, said twice. I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of god, said twice. Come to prayer. Come to success. God is most great.
There is no god but great, but God, but and then prayer is better than sleep. I like that one. I try to get up then, but so the bottom line here, whenever we who are Christians hear the call to prayer, let us hear let’s hear it as a call to pray for Muslims, and it’s good. There’s nothing very offensive about the call to prayer, except that we, as Christians, do not testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. And I try I talk about the prophet of Islam, I talk about the prophet, but I try not to, talk about him as if he were my prophet.
But I don’t want to offend Muslims, so I’m very careful. And sometimes, when I’m talking with a Muslim, I give an honorific title. I talk about Muhammad in, using an adjective which would give him some honor, but I cannot give him that honor of prophethood. Otherwise, I would be a Muslim. And then ritual prayer, this is the salat, that’s the Arabic, or the namaz, which is the urdu.
Generally, it’s the same word. You could use salat in Pakistan, and you would be understood, of course, but we do use namaz, which means the same thing. And Salat is the second of the 5 pillars of Islam. I think you’re getting familiar you with the with the 5 pillars, if you’re not already. The first is the saying of the creed, which makes you a Muslim.
Muslims all declare it. There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his prophet. The second is, the prayer, and then we have, the giving of alms, and we have pilgrimage. We have, one I’ve missed, fasting. Is that 5?
Good. Ritual prayers can be said in private, particularly women do that, or at the mosque or a special prayer area in the mosque for women, sometimes. Usually, women say it at home, and I think that if we have Muslim guests, we should make provision to for them to pray if they wish. And if I have a Muslim friend who’s visiting for some hours, and I know she’s a, sort of devout practicing Muslim, I ask her, do you want to have a quiet corner to say your prayers? And, I ask I give her that opportunity.
She may or she may not. And, sometimes when I’m staying with Muslims, I have a friend in India I’ve stayed with, and she says, she will say to me, I’m just going to pray. She’s gonna do her salat or her namaz, so that’s okay. So I say, yeah. Well, I’ll say my prayers, and, and sometimes I take up my New Testament as well and what I got forgot a bible.
So I take that opportunity to, to say my prayers. I found it very when I first met, this friend of mine, I met her in London where we were both students, and the first time I went to call on her in her hostel, I had to wait for 10 minutes while she finished her prayers, and and that was a great shock to me. I mean, I’m not used to I’m used to waiting for people for various things, but I had never waited for anyone to say their prayers before, but it made an impression which I can remember even now after about 40 years. Anyway, I don’t have any problems adjusting on this. The first surah is recited as part of the daily ritual prayer all over the world.
So this surah is recited at least 5 times a day by every Muslim who is a says his prayers or says her prayers. Not all Muslims are so practicing, but, that’s true for in Chris Christian circles as well. The first surah, praise be to Allah, lord of the worlds, the beneficent, the merciful, owner of the day of judgment. Thee alone we worship. Thee alone we ask for help.
Show us the straight path, the path of those whom thou has favored, not the path of those who earn thine anger, nor of those who go astray. Sometimes, Muslims ask, how do you pray? Or what is your creed? Meaning, what is the equivalent of there is no God but God and Muhammad is his prophet? I don’t recite the Apostle’s Creed, and I don’t recite the Nicene Creed for the for them in answer to that.
I recite, John 17 verse 3. This is life eternal that we might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou Jesus, whom thou hast sent. That’s I say is an equivalent. It’s a statement of the same length, but we do have a lengthier statement, which I could show you if you would like. Anyway, pilgrims recite the following invocation in Arabic thousands of times during the 1st days of the pilgrimage and before going to Mount Arafat.
You call us here. We are here, oh god. We are here. We are here. There is none beside you.
We are here. Praise and good deeds belong to you and the empire. There is none but you. Now it’s, it’s very helpful. I have all the text of what pilgrims say when they go, on the main pilgrimage to Mecca.
Very useful to know what they do and what they say. So we can say, Christians, like Muslims, should be seen to be people of prayer. I’ve already, in another session, said we should be seen to be who we are. Sometimes Muslims have asked me, how many times a day do you pray? So I say, well, I have my own prayers early in the morning.
I pray at breakfast, and I pray at lunch, and I pray at supper, and I join with my group in the where I’m living, family prayers in the evening. So that must make how many? Oh, it makes 5. Right. But, and then I may give some other answer.
But, Muslims think the set prayers are very, very important, but it doesn’t rule out for them personal and formal prayer. Du’a, both is an Arabic word, word, for informal personal prayer, and Muslims do go in for that. My my friend that I have stayed with in India, she said to me, you know, I don’t know how I would manage if I couldn’t pray about my problems. And now she’s not talking about the 5 days a day prayer. She’s talking about about this.
So it means a lot to her personal informal prayer, which consists of invocations or requests or intercessions or memorized or prayer or extempore prayer. She gave me a book of prayers that she had written, and I still have it in Cyprus. So the literal meaning of du’a is a cry or a call. If you can see into the devotion of somebody, you get some idea of where they are, what they’re seeking. So it’s good to dip into, sort of records of people’s prayers.
There’s another book of prayers that you might come across. It’s a book of compiled by Kenneth Bishop Kenneth Cragg. He it’s called Alive to God, and he has on one side a Christian prayer, on the other side a, Muslim prayer, this which is similar in some ways. So he has this, the we if you were going through the formal prayers, the salats or the nimars, if you went through all the texts, you would find a problem. You wouldn’t be able to identify as well as you can identify with the first surah that we’ve got here, because it prays for blessings on Muhammad and his family.
So I can say the first surah, but I can’t ask for blessings on on Muhammad and his family. But, anyway, we’re we’re not saying what we’re going to use each other’s prayers. We’re thinking, okay. They are people of prayer. We are people of prayer.
So I think that’s, it it’s helpful when we say to Muslims that we’re praying for them. I’ve had Muslims say to me, I’m praying for you, when they know how to I have a difficulty, and I take the opportunity every now and then to say that I’m praying for them. But I also like to take the opportunity of praying with Muslims if they if they are willing. And I have prayed with 100 of Muslim women individually. They are much more happy for us to pray than we are to volunteer to pray is my experience.
I was quite hesitant, but now I’m not hesitant at all. And, one has to be sensitive and not necessarily volunteer on every you don’t take every occasion, but out of 9 out of 10 cases, it would be quite appropriate if a Muslim has told you about her problems or the child is obviously sick, that you offer to pray. And in your handbook, you’ll find a section. The handbook is has actually everything that’s in here. It’s this text.
And in this, you’ll find, a section about praying, with Muslim women. And, when I pray with Muslim women, I tell them before I ask them, well, you this this child is sick. Before I leave, would you like me to pray? If I pray, I will pray in the name of Jesus, the Messiah. I make that clear.
I make it clear that I’m going to pray in that name. They I don’t think I’ve ever been refused on the question of praying for someone who’s who’s sick. They have been very happy for me to to pray. Now I prepare, my general way of praying with a Muslim aloud. I prepare in that I put in more if I were gonna pray in a Christian home for a sick child, I would not do it in exactly the same way.
So first, I would praise God more at the beginning because Muslims are pretty high up on praising God. They as you see, they are praising. So I praise God that he is creator, that he is provider, that he is redeemer. I I I just have about a sentence or so very clearly praising him. I don’t call him father generally because that’s rather implicating Muslims who don’t regard God as father.
If they regarded him as father, they would become Christians if they truly did. Like Bilqis Shaikh, she says, I dared to call him father. That’s her the title of her life testimony, as it were. A Christian. She became a Muslim.
She was a Muslim, became a Christian. I dared to call him father. It is such a daring for a Muslim to call God father that it really leads them to know Christ. It’s a daring that brings them into the family of God. So I don’t want to implicate, those who are listening into something by my prayer, which is I know is not probably they’re not ready for.
But then I will go on, to name the person for whom I’m going to pray, because I feel so many Muslim women and children are never named before God. It is my great privilege to name somebody before the god and father of the lord Jesus Christ. It’s my great privilege to pray for Muslims in their presence. So I want to name them. I’ll name the child that’s sick.
I’ll name the mother. In fact, it’s nobody else’s name to them before god. And then I will make the particular request. I might quote from scripture. I sometimes quote the prophet Isaiah by whose who says about Jesus, by his stripes, you are healed.
So I might quote a prophet because the words of a prophet, have more power for in the minds of a Muslim than the other words, the words of a prophet. So I might quote the words of the prophet Isaiah or the words of, Jesus, But I don’t use scripture as an evangelistic tool in prayer. It has to be prayer. It’s genuine prayer. So I do it in my own prayer sometimes.
I I pray using quoting scripture. You do it sometimes. It’s, quite in order. It’s done in the acts of the apostles and many other places. But the disciples under persecution quoted from the Psalms and so on.
And then I will conclude the prayer in the name of Jesus, the Messiah, or Esa ibn Eim Maryam, the son Jesus, the son of Mary. The other 5th thing I do in preparing my prayer, that my mind so that I will know how I’m going to pray with a Muslim when the opportunity comes is in the choice of vocabulary. So I won’t choose words which, religious vocabulary, which, might put them off. I’ll choose, religious vocabulary, which maybe is common to both Christianity and Islam? I’ll, it depends on the course on the language that you’re using, but, Christians in Pakistan are most are quite strongly influenced by Hinduism because at the turn of the century, many from outcast cast Hinduism came into the Christian church.
So the Christian church in the Punjab tends to have a subculture, which has its some of its origins for vocabulary in in Hinduism. There’s nothing wrong with some of the stuff that comes in, but, it’s not very good for using it when you’re praying with Muslims. And, I just can’t think of a particular example, but if you look in your handbook, you will find, 1 or 2 examples on that. And I’ve written out in this, booklet and in your handbook, I’ve written out prayers that we could use, in praying for the sick. I’ve also written out a small prayer, for use when you visit someone who’s gonna have a baby, a Muslim woman you’re visiting who’s looking forward to or or not looking forward to the birth of a child.
I talked to lots of midwives who, visited. I talked to some in Morocco and Afghanistan, who, visit in homes, and we we kept on hammering away at this brief prayer to try to find, make it suitable. And it mentions if you look at it in your text, in your handbook at some time, you’ll you’ll find that it mentions that, Mary mentions Mary and and her son, who were delivered from the from the safely from the pain of childbirth and, to pray that, like Mary, you will, this woman may be freely be be freed and, have safe, childbirth. Now I would urge you very much, to to think about putting praying with Muslim women very, very high on your list, and I don’t think that Muslims are gonna be they will probably welcome it. I go to a home, a Muslim home in Bahrain, and I’ve been going there.
Every time I go to Bahrain, and I must have been there 25 times or more, every time I go, I get in touch with this family because they like to me to come and visit them, so I quite often go as I’ve been I was introduced first by a doctor who was treating one of the members of the family, and, but the women members of the family, didn’t know Arabic. They were Pakistani. They knew Urdu at that time. This was 25 years ago. So I was asked if I would translate, so I went in that capacity.
And before I left, the host asked me, will you pray? Oh, no. The it’s the doctor urged me to, and she asked the host that I might pray for them, so I did. I wouldn’t have taken the initiative. But every time every time from thereon, the head of the family has collected his 22 family members also or told them to come or they came, and and I’ve been asked to pray for that family.
And my prayers get a little bit longer, and I sometimes introduce a couple of verses of scripture. They’re very happy. Sometimes I say, well, I was at the meeting with the Christians this morning and I was reading to them, this verse, and I told them this and this and this. Okay. But, the whole family is there.
Now they all speak Arabic, but and I I don’t really speak much Arabic, so I carry on, and we have have prayers in Urdu. And, the the leader of the home, the the man who is my host, his he says, when you pray, I fear fear then I feel the nearness of of God. And there is something about it’s not evangelism, but it’s it’s standing in the presence or sitting in the presence of God, and so he is definitely working and present. Perhaps there’s something very moving sometimes to even to listen to somebody, praying if they’re really in touch with God. Somehow, some of this comes across to him at least.
And, he now he I bring him books, and he likes reading Christian books. He’s got the the Cross of Christ by John Stott in in in Urdu. He’s got a whole range of things that over the years I’ve brought him, and I’m sure that not just he reads, people in that house. And he’s he’s grown. He’s listened to Kenneth Craig when Kenneth Craig has come to Bahrain and given public lectures about the Christian faith and Christianity and Islam.
He’s coming nearer. He hasn’t come to faith, but, but we recognize each other as people of prayer and people of faith and people of devotion. And praying with women or praying with men for that matter, if you’re a man, this is very important. We are so close in this desire to speak with God, to come before God in some way, to submit, as it were. So let us use this wonderful privilege that Muslims will so often graciously grant us, to pray, pray silently if necessary, but to pray for them in public if they wish.
At the hospital bed side, there are often opportunities. There are no member no end end really to this. So I start early in your time. Don’t wait till you’re, sort of middle aged, and then I’m trying to encourage you to learn from my own slowness. So praise be to god, lord of the worlds.