Paul Salahuddin Armstrong, Founder and Director of Wulfruna Sufi Association
Support us:
Site Index
-
Join 81 other subscribers
Social Networks
Twitter feed: @wulfrunasufi
Tweets by wulfrunasufiFind us on Facebook
Disclaimer: External Links
Links to external, or third party websites, are provided solely for visitors' convenience. Links taken to other sites are done so at your own risk and Wulfruna Sufi Association accepts no liability for any linked sites or their content. When you access an external website, keep in mind that Wulfruna Sufi Association has no control over its content.
Any link from the Wulfruna Sufi Association website to an external website does not imply or mean that Wulfruna Sufi Association endorses or accepts any responsibility for the content or the use of such website. Wulfruna Sufi Association does not give any representation regarding the quality, safety, suitability, or reliability of any external websites or any of the content or materials contained in them. It is important for users to take necessary precautions, especially to ensure appropriate safety from viruses, worms, Trojan horses and other potentially destructive items.
When visiting external websites, users should review those websites' privacy policies and other terms of use to learn more about, what, why and how they collect and use any personally identifiable information.
My Visitor Map
Website Stats
- 259,754 hits
Copyright Notice:
© Wulfruna Sufi Association and/or the authors of contributed content. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author(s) is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that the text is not edited for any reason without express and written permission from the author(s) and full and clear credit is given to the author(s), with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Prayer in the Bible
This entry was posted in Allah, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Islam, Israel, Jesus, Jew, Judaism, Muhammad, Muslim, prayer, Qur'an, reflection, religion, spirituality, truth, video, worship and tagged Allah, Christian, church, covenant, God, Islam, Jew, Mecca, mosque, Muslim, namaz, pray, prayer, priest, rabbi, salaat, salah, scarf, synagogue, turban, worship. Bookmark the permalink.
Wulfruna Sufi Association 
We Orthodox Christians have been praying with bows and prostrations for nearly 2,000 years. They are nothing new (or old, as in we don’t do them anymore) in Christianity!
Very true! Unfortunately, many people in the West have no experience with this kind of prayer, seeing it as something peculiar to Islam. But I agree with you, bowing and prostrating has been an integral part of both Jewish and Christian worship in the East for a very long time!
Yes, it’s only recently that the Western world is being introduced to the more Eastern ‘flavored’ way of worship. It’s amazing the differences really. I can’t speak for Islam, but in with Christianity western worship is more legalistic, more ‘by the book’ while eastern worship is more experiential, more ‘mystical’ if you will.
In some ways, I suppose it is. But then, if they were really going by the Book, surely bowing and prostrating would be more commonplace? Eastern Christianity is definitely more mystical though! Unlike Western churches, those in the East never lost touch with their Gnostic roots. Rather they celebrate them! Throughout history, Islam has had far better relations with Orthodox churches. There has been more understanding between these faiths, with both respectfully coexisting – even as far back as the time of the Crusades!
After the Western Crusaders left, Saladin handed back the keys of the churches in the Holy Land to the Orthodox patriarchs. Unfortunately, Western Christianity seems to have for the most part lost its connection with it’s Semitic origins. Hence why it’s often had very poor relations with both Jews and Muslims. Whereas in the East, the connections are more generally accepted and celebrated!
“Throughout history, Islam has had far better relations with Orthodox churches”
I don’t know about that now… we could mention the Muslim Turk invasion of Cyprus, and the supposed secular Turkish govenment’s extreme restrictions on the Patriarch of Constantinople for just starters. Overall it’s been the Eastern Church which has suffered the most under Muslims, mainly because of the close proximity.
Modern Turkey is, as you rightly refer, a secular state. Actually, they are not merely secular, they’re fiercely anti-religious. The modern government of Turkey has little to do with Islam, even Muslims suffer under it’s oppressive ideology of irreligious Turkish nationalism! Islam has a long history starting in the 7th Century AD, whereas the Republic of Turkey was only founded in 1923.