Usually what I do in my blog is I talk a bit about different topics that I find interesting that relate to people and in the third week I do an interview with another person about what they think about the topic.
This month is different.
Because it is my birthday month, I decided about six months ago that I wanted to chose a topic that I was really fascinated about and hopefully people would enjoy it as well. I then choose faith.
But after I choose the topic of faith, my mind kept spinning on how I would write that month and what I could do to make it the best it could be.
I then decided to interview a person a week from a different religion and ask them what they though faith was.
At the time, I knew it was going to be hard work so I carefully planned out which weeks I was going to interview who and when I was going to write those.
And about two weeks ago, I finally got around to doing the first interview.
I first wanted to interview a different religion but that interview fell through and I started researching about the Islam religion.
I found myself excited to go so a mosque and talk to the people there. So, on a sunny Friday, I put on my best long sleeve shirt and pants and drove to the mosque in Orem.
From what I had seen in pictures, mosques are gorgeous buildings that have four pillars in each corner. They are extrodinary in size and in architecture and I was excited to see one in person.
However, when I arrived, I found that the mosque was actually in a tiny house that was just a bit bigger than my shed. I suddenly became afraid of being by myself and walking into a house.
I slowly got my courage up and walked towards the tiny house. There, on the door read “Please enter through the back.”
“I must be in the right spot,” I thought to myself while making my way to the back.
Turning around the corner, I read another sign which asked women to enter one door and men a different one.
I don’t think I ever realized that Muslim men and women would worship in different rooms, but I entered through the door, taking off my shoes when the women pointed at them.
In the corner of the room, there was a small TV screen with a live recording of another room in the mosque. Sitting down, I started listening to the man who was teaching the others.
He started to teach about patience and the blessing that come from it. He taught that Joseph from Egypt had patience that God would help him, from his brother’s teasing to his 12 years in jail.
When we have patience with others, God will bless you and reward your patience.
There was a reverence that filled the room. The women that I sat with knew that they needed to listen and that when they listened, they learned.
After the lesson ended, the teacher left the screen and a new man stood up, leading everyone in the prayer.
The musical chant brought what I have known as the spirit into the room. I learned that when Muslims pray, they don’t let anything distract them from their prayer. I wished that I could be the same with my prayers.
A small child pulled on her mother’s dress. The mother didn’t look away from her prayer.
The prayer ended and the room started chattering as the women started talking to each other and the visitors that were there.
A Muslim woman, who would like not to be named, started talking to me.
I asked if I could interview her. She said, “yes.”
“What do you think faith is?”
“We believe in the five pillars of faith,” she said.
The five pillars of faith in the Islam religion are declaration of faith, obligatory prayer, compulsory giving, fasting in the month of Ramadan, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
This woman talked about how faith to her was a devotion towards God. She mentioned that even if you can’t do some of these things that God understands and that you are still being faithful.
“This life is temporary,” she said. “If you work hard, live an honest life, and trust in yourself and God then you are good.”
The Islam faith believes that if you do good things and you do good in life then you have been a faithful person and have shown your devotion to God.
Throughout talking to this woman and learning more about her faith and what she believes, I learned that my own faith in my own religion could have more devotion.
The way that her religion practices prayer, how they are constantly giving to others in need, and how they show their devotion, I could be better at that.
Faith may be different to her than to me but that doesn’t mean I can’t integrate it into my own life. I plan on being more faithful in the Islam way for my own religion and I believe that it will change the way I worship forever.
