regimes. It is important to remember, however,
that resorting to violence is in many ways a direct
result of being cut off from participating in the
political process.
See also abd al-raziq, ali; aUthority; caliph-
ate; colonialism; constitUtionalism; india; gov-
ernment, islamic; hamas; iraq; islamism; Jamaat-i
islami; mUslim brotherhood; nasir, Jamal abd
al-; pakistan; reneWal and reForm movements;
secUlarism; Wahhabism.
Heather N. KeaneyFurther reading: Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, eds., Political
Islam: Essays from Middle East Report (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1997); L. Carl Brown, Religion
and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2000); Edmund Burke III
and Ira Lapidus, eds., Islam, Politics, and Social Move-
ments (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988);
Dale F. Eickelman and James Piscatori, Muslim Politics
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004).
polytheism See idolatry.
pork See dietary laws.
prayer
There are two main forms of prayer in Islam. Litur-
gical prayer (salat), one of Islam’s Five pillars, is
the primary form of public worship, requiring the
believer to pray in Arabic, the language of divine
speech, drawn from the qUran. Salat must be per-
formed facing toward the kaaba in mecca (the qibla
direction, because it is believed by Muslims to be
God’s sacred “house”) five times daily: dawn (fajr),
noon (zuhr), afternoon (asr), sunset (maghrib),
and night (isha). Each time of prayer is preceded
and announced by the call to prayer (adhan) sum-
moning believers to the mosqUe (Q 50:39–41).
The number and times of salat are not fully set in
the Quran, but became established during Prophet
mUhammad’s lifetime based on his sUnna (custom-
ary behavior), as recorded in the hadith. The quint-
essential prayer gesture is the prostration (sujud) in
which the believer first bows from a standing posi-
tion, kneels, and leans forward touching forehead
to the ground. Muslims are defined in the Quran as
“those who prostrate themselves” (Q 48:29), and
the mosque is the “place of prostration” (masjid).
Since prayer involves no sitting, mosques tradi-
tionally are open spaces having no seating or pews,
only carpeting or matting on which to stand, kneel,
and prostrate, along with a pulpit (minbar) for Fri-
day noon sermons, and a niche (mihrab) indicating
the direction of prayer (qibla).
In order to be ready to pray, the believer must
be ritually pure, requiring ablUtion of the hands,
arms, face, and feet (wudu), or a full bath (ghusl)
after menses or sexual relations (Q 5:6, 9). The
dress code for prayer requires modesty, minimally
for men covering from navel to knees, and for
Women from neck to ankles, usually including a
scarf covering the hair. Liturgical prayer in Islam
can be performed in any clean location. Thus,
Muslims can do salat in their homes, at their
jobs, in the street, as well as in the conventional
location of the mosque. Salat can be performed
alone or in a group organized in rows led by anMen and women at noon prayer in the Sultan Hasan
Mosque, Cairo, Egypt(Juan E. Campo)prayer 557 J