Children of Persia :: CHAPTER VII PERSIAN PRAYERS

CHAPTER VII PERSIAN PRAYERS

Persian boys and girls need not say their prayers till they are seven years old. Sometimes they begin sooner, but that is considered unnecessarily good. They are not to be beaten for not saying them till they are ten, and I have not seen many children under ten years old saying their prayers. We cannot remember learning to pray, for as soon as we could understand anything about God, we were taught to ask Him to take care of us, to ask Him to forgive us when we were naughty, and to help us to be good, to thank Him for His kindness and His gifts. It is so simple that a child of three or four can come to God in this way, we need not wait till we are seven to bring simple petitions to our Heavenly Father. But little Ghulam Husain’s prayers are far from simple. He has first to learn to wash his face, hands and arms, and feet and legs. “That does not need much teaching,” you say. “He can surely wash himself at that age.” But there is a right and a wrong way of washing in Persia before prayers. There is a right and a wrong side of your face to wash first, there is a right and a wrong hand and a right and a wrong foot to wash first. If a Persian is very religious and careful there is even a right and a wrong side of his arm and leg to wash first, but few Persian children are as careful as that. No soap is wanted, just plain water, or, if there is no water, sand. So our our little Ghulam Husain learns his washings, and now he is ready to learn the prayers themselves, which are all in Arabic so that he does not understand them.

He is shown the direction of Mecca to which he must always turn when saying them, and he is taught when to stand, when to kneel, when to bow himself till his forehead touches the ground, and when to make various gestures. And when he has learnt all this he is ready to begin saying his prayers regularly, and he is told that if he says them correctly, and with the right movements, they will be pleasing to God, and count as good works. He must say them three times a day, and he cannot choose his time. When the prayer-call sounds from the mosque roofs, and is taken up by people on the house roofs, he must leave what he is doing, and wash and say his prayers—the same prayers every time. First in the early dawn, before sunrise, he hears the call, and he must get out of bed for washing and prayers. In the summer it may be as early as four o’clock, in winter not till six or seven. Then, again, when the sun-dial on the mosque marks noon, the call is heard, and again at sunset, and each time the prayers must be said within half an hour. Half an hour’s grace is allowed, so if Persians have visitors when the prayer-call sounds, they are able to go in turns to say their prayers, so as not to leave the visitor alone.

PERSIANS AT PRAYER

Some Persians are very particular about their prayers, but many are not so particular and will leave them unsaid if there is any excuse; and, as in other religions, there are people who neglect their prayers altogether.

There are many who are very regular in their prayers and very particular as to the direction towards which they face, and their positions and gestures at various parts of the prayers, but who are not in the least really reverent over them. Medical missionaries especially cannot always choose the time of their visits, and sometimes cannot avoid prayer-time. Then, instead of going to a quiet room, the Muhammadans often say their prayers in the room where the missionary is being entertained, and the conversation is never hushed for them; indeed, they will often themselves join in the conversation even while they are supposed to be praying.One day a party of women from a Mulla’s house were visiting a missionary, when the evening prayer-call sounded.

“We shall hardly have time to get home in half an hour,” the Mulla’s wife said. “May I say my prayers here?” The missionary readily gave her consent, but only the one lady availed herself of the permission, and, having asked in which direction Mecca lay, placed her prayer-stone in front of her and knelt down to say her prayers.

The rest went on talking loudly round her, calling out and stretching across just in front of her in a way that must have attracted her attention. When the missionary asked them to be quiet they assured her that their friend did not mind, and she herself turned from her prayers to beg them not to stop for her. But the missionary insisted on quiet until the prayers were over, explaining that it was not a question of respect to the lady, but of reverence to God, and, in the conversation which naturally followed, she was able to tell them some of the Bible teaching on prayer.

The prayer-stone is a small slab of about an inch and a half across, made of the earth of Kerbela where Husain, the grandson of Muhammad was killed. The Kerbela earth is said to be scented with “the blood of the martyrs,” and is much used for prayer-stones and rosaries.

A Muhammadan places his prayer-stone on the ground before him when he says his prayers. If anyone passes in front of a Muhammadan as he is saying his prayers it is supposed to greatly reduce their value. But if he puts the prayer-stone in front of him it acts as a church wall and cuts him off from the outside world, and nothing passing on the far side of the stone can affect his prayers. If he has no prayer-stone he sometimes draws a line on the earth instead, and this is said to be just as effectual. At certain points in the prayers the forehead must touch the ground, and when a prayer-stone is used the forehead touches the prayer-stone, and perhaps the holiness of the earth touched is supposed to increase the value of the prayers.

After the regular Arabic prayers have been said any further prayers may be added in Persian, but the people seem generally to content themselves with the set prayers and to be shy of adding any of their own wording, and in any case the Arabic prayers are considered the more important.

Although the Persians use their prayers like charms, repeating forms which convey to them no meaning, yet they have great faith in the efficacy of prayers as charms. One Sunday a Persian woman brought her little girl to the doctor’s house, covered with smallpox and very ill. Finding that it was service time she thought the prayers might do the child good, so she put off asking for medicine till later, and, hiding the child under her chadar, she sat down among the other women and children through the whole service.

I have never known Persians refuse Christian prayers over their sick friends, and generally they join in with a heartfelt Amen to prayers which they have been able to understand. At one house where they were afraid of the medicine they entreated the missionary doctor to come daily to pray over the patient. The patient was one of five cases of typhoid fever in the house. The others were being treated by a Persian doctor, but this woman had very serious complications and seemed so unlikely to recover that he suggested their calling in a Christian doctor for her. For many days she lay quite unconscious, but every day the missionary walked a mile and a half to pray beside her, and every day the same entreaty was repeated, “You will come again to-morrow, won’t you?” And the prayers were answered, for at last signs of improvement appeared, and the poor woman was restored to health and strength again.

God has given us a wonderful privilege in allowing us to come freely to Him as our Father, and lay all our joys and sorrows, troubles and perplexities before Him.

“Oh! What peace we often forfeit,

Oh! What needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer!”

And, if that is true of us, how much more true it is of the Muhammadans who do not know God as their Father, who do not know that God is love, who do not know that they may carry everything to God in prayer. When we think of the want of peace, the needless pain, the sin, the sorrow, the wretchedness in Muhammadan lands, and yet see the people so ready to pray, surely it is our plain and urgent duty to teach them how to pray, as our Lord has taught us, and to teach them to Whom they must pray—not to an unknowable, unloving Allah, but to a tender, pitying Father, Who so loved them that He gave His only begotten Son to die for their salvation.

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