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Consists of Summary and
analysis a chapter from Michael Muhammad Knight’s Muhammad: Forty Introductions.First describe why you have chosen the chapter from Knight’s
book – what struck you as intriguing or interesting about it? Then write a summary (what
does the author say?) and analysis (what is their main point or argument and how
effectively do they make it?).No sources outside of assigned course readings are allowed.
im gonna upload the pages of the book also a template of this assignment that im gonna copy paste here.
Chapter 13: The People of Wudu’
I chose this chapter as it struck me as surprising to think of religion not as a belief in the mind,
but rather as an embodied action and practice. I have heard that Islam is a religion that
emphasizes practice and I wanted to learn more about that. This chapter discusses a particular
practice: wudu’ or ritual washing before prayer. I know that washing is important in different
religious traditions as a way to purify oneself for prayer, ceremony, or ritual, and wanted to
understand more about how it works in Islam.
Knight’s first main argument in this chapter, is that Islam does not always fit within Western
understandings of religion, where religion has tended to be defined as: “faith, bible, church”
(100). In contrast to this framework, Knight highlights how important bodily ritual is to Islam, in
particular wudu’ or washing parts of one’s body before the five-times daily prayers (salat), to
enter into a state of ritual purity. Annemarie Schimmel says that if one expels fluid, matter, or
gas from their body, or falls asleep, they require wudu’ before prayer, which involves washing
“the face, part of the head, the arms to the elbows, the feet to the ankles” (40).
Knight defines the term salat, and then describes the importance of being in a state of ritual
purity before performing prayer. He shares that, in collections of Muhammad’s sayings, non-
Muslims may be surprised to find out that the first thing discussed is not faith or salvation, but
rather “the necessary knowledge for achieving and maintaining ritual purity” (101). Washing to
be in a state of ritual purity is actually foundational to the Prophet Muhammad’s teachings: the
hadith Knight discusses in this chapter refers to wudu’ as “the sign of my community” (100).
Knight then concludes the chapter with a discussion of his own experience of ritual purity and
prayer, and how Muslims might interpret these rituals differently over time.
That brings us to Knight’s second main argument in this chapter, that “the meanings of prayer
change across different contexts” (102). As a young convert to Islam, Knight encountered
Islamic pamphlets that described washing as a mental preparation for prayer. He notes that some
Muslims even see the five times daily prayer as a meditative practice like yoga. For others
however, washing is seen as “God’s prescriiption for physically removing sins from one’s flesh”
(103). His argument here is that Muslims define the meaning of rituals like washing and prayer
in different ways in different times, with some emphasizing more the mental aspects of these and
others the physical.
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What stood out to me about this argument was his idea that different Muslim understandings of
washing and prayer may be “more useful than others,” depending on the time and place that a
particular Muslim lives within (102). I find this intriguing, as it suggests that Islam might be
something like a tool kit of various interpretations that Muslims can draw from when they need
different resources. Does this mean if, say yoga is ‘cool’ now, that Muslims can define salat as a
sort of Islamic yoga? But what are the implications of that? I get that there are different
interpretations that people can draw from, but what influences shape which interpretations they
choose to highlight? I wonder what might be some of the advantages and disadvantages of
interpreting religion according to current intellectual fashions.
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