Muslims pray five times a day, at dawn, at noon, in the afternoon, in the evening and at nightfall. In the Christian world, the church bells toll the Angelus. In the Islamic world, it is the muezzin, or crier, that announces each prayertime from the mosque’s tower. Friday is their equivalent of our Sunday.
Almsgiving is called Zakat and there are two kinds – obligatory and voluntary. Obligatory is like the Biblical tithe, only it is two-and-a-half percent instead of ten percent of one’s earnings. It is collected to be distributed to the poor and the needy. In Islam, free-will charity has a limit. No person can will all his wealth to charity as the family has a fixed legal inheritance.
As for fasting, their rules are much stricter than the Christian rules for abstention. Muslims fast the whole month of the Ramadan, and their fasting consists in abstaining from food and water from dawn to sunset. Travellers, the sick, nursing mothers and soldiers in the field are exempted from this fast, but they must make up for all the days missed. The end of the fast is joyfully celebrated with a three-day feast known as Little Bairam.
Pilgrimage or the Hadj is the trip to Mecca that the Koran obliges all Muslims to make at least once in his lifetime. The end of the pilgrimage is the greatest of all Muslim festivals and it is celebrated like our Christmas with an exchange of gifts.
We welcome the Ramadan because we believe that it will mark a respite from the terrorist activities of some misguided and unrepresentative Muslims of our time. We believe that even these extremists will respect the Ramadan. The Ramadan was the month in which the Koran was revealed to Mohammad. We hope that the Ramadan will bring peace from terrorist to at least Dec. 6. In Mindanao, non-governmental organizations are preparing a Peace Week celebration from Nov. 26 to Dec. 3. The Philippines should be the prime example of a country where Christians and Muslims live in peace.