Muslim Cleric Speaks the Truth

J.J. Jackson* | June 9, 2008

Gee, want to help eliminate poverty? Want to better your situation? No, the answer isn’t wage jihgad and blame the west. The answer is work more! Sounds simple right? Well in some countries, especially those dominated by certain sects of Muslims, it isn’t. But some people are starting to realize the problem.

For Egyptian-born Muslim cleric and television host, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, there is a simple answer to Egypt’s productivity problem — pray less, work more.

“Praying is a good thing … 10 minutes should be enough,” Al-Jazeera television personality Qaradawi says in a religious edict, or fatwa, published on his website.

Praying five times a day is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with the well-known requirements of making a pilgrimage to Mecca and of giving alms to the poor.

Two of each day’s five sessions — the dhuhr (noon) prayer and asr (afternoon) prayer — fall within working hours, bringing work to a standstill at least twice a day in many places.

A prayer generally takes an average of 10 minutes, but it can be extended if a worshipper chooses to recite one of the longer verses of the Koran.

And before the prayers themselves, there is also a mandatory ablution during which worshippers must wash their faces, hands and arms, feet and heads. In large office buildings, the trips to the bathroom can also eat away at valuable work time.

If you want to pray during work ours and not be as productive as you can be that’s fine. Material wealth isn’t everything. But if you choose to do so, and are poor, bitter and blaming everyone else for things you don’t have just remember that you are the reason for it – not someone else – not America.

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