Evaluating the masjid, Ashura and the value of fasting

Overview

Argued against treating prostration as the masjid's most important purpose and argued for fasting benefiting the community more than the individual.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Give the case that prostration is the most important purpose of the masjid.

   Model answer

   The building is named for prostration, its whole layout points to Makkah for that act, prayer is the only function it uniquely provides, and Muslims argue that education and welfare flow from worship rather than standing alongside it.

2. 2

   What is argued against treating prostration as the masjid's most important purpose?

   Model answer

   Prostration can be performed anywhere on clean ground, whereas the masjid alone supplies teaching, welfare, arbitration and community, and the first masjid in Madinah was built as the seat of a whole society rather than as a prayer room.

3. 3

   Present the case that the masjid today has kept the function of the first masjid in Madinah.

   Model answer

   British mosques still combine prayer with schooling, charity, dispute resolution, hospitality and representation of the community, which is exactly the range of work the Prophet's masjid carried.

4. 4

   What suggests the modern masjid has lost the role of the first masjid?

   Model answer

   It no longer houses government, courts or a treasury, many function largely as prayer halls open at fixed hours, some exclude women who were present in Madinah, and mosques organised around one ethnic or linguistic group serve a section rather than the whole ummah.

5. 5

   Give the case that a focus on suffering during Ashura misrepresents Shi'a identity.

   Model answer

   Shi'a Islam is a complete tradition of law, philosophy and devotion, yet outsiders see only mourning processions, and the most striking images are of a minority practice, so an annual ritual comes to stand for the whole.

6. 6

   What can be said for the view that mourning at Ashura genuinely expresses Shi'a identity?

   Model answer

   The killing of Hussein is the event through which Shi'a Muslims understand the imamate, injustice and the duty to resist, so a ritual that rehearses it every year states the community's central conviction rather than distorting it.

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