Zahra tells, “To me means find myself and get help from Allah. If in the morning I wake up and pray, I know all day there is someone look after me and whenever I need help – I have help.
Zahra
( “In the morning I wake up first all in the pray we thanks God whatever he provides us and also we ask for help for our life. When we pray we remember who we are, we are human )
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2
What does prayer mean to you?
As my point of view religion or prayer has 2 parts – One is personal, the other as a community or everyone
What does prayer personally mean to me? “To me means find myself and get help from Allah. If in the morning I wake up and pray, I know all day there is someone look after me and whenever I need help – I have help.
My religion, I’m Muslim, Shia . Islam like Christian has different groups, I am Shia Muslim. I believe one God, and all the prophets from Adam to prophet Mohammad.
Who taught you to pray?
I came from a muslim family, I was about 7 years old, I learnt from my mum and my father and they taught me.
When I live in my country or in Afghanistan, or I moved to Iran – we have a saying, “as much as you travel, you learn” but when in Afghanistan I moved to Iran, both countries were a muslim country so quite similar, but when I moved to Australia it was really big change – it opened my mind for me. So I saw the other religions here. In Afghanistan, In Iran we have different religion but because covering ourself is all the same so we are not much really noticed and that time we were really young we did not really think about it so when I moved to Australia at the beginning when I came because of my language and the cultural and never been out of a muslim country it was really hard for me but when I move around, when I met other people like a Christian, Buddhist and lots of other religions I found out at the end we are the same
What does that look like? (Ie. how do you pray?)
“In the morning I wake up first all in the pray we thanks God whatever he provides us and also we ask for help for our life. When we prayer we remember who we are, we are human so as according to our book, our prophet, our Iman’s saying – when we respect ourself we have to respect the other human doesn’t matter who is opposite us, muslim or non muslim, they are human which – Iman Hussain on day of Ashura – he said if you are not a muslim be a man, be a human so this is the biggest message from him for us. When we pray we remember Allah, we respect ourself, we remember ourself, when we respect ourself we can remember the others, they are a human too and we all live in this world so that’s why I think religion is not personal it is yourself and the peoples living around you.”
There is like a compulsory prayer we call Namaz 5 times a day but we are the Shia people doing 3 times a day, but the same amount as 5 times. The 5 times is morning, midday, afternoon, just after sunset.
The other one is called Namaz Duas (check spelling) is compulsory for the natural disaster – like there is earthquake. If we are scared we have to pray just to relieve ourself. If for example today I am very busy I am working with someone so I can’t pray so I have to try myself to do the pray, if I can’t I have to do the catchup that a compulsory. If we are fasting, or we get sick or we are pregnant or anything or something comes up and we have to travel we break our fast then we have to catchup so this is a compulsory.
Reading Quran is one of the other – we have to do it, it is not really compulsory but it is very good or there is lots of other prayer like talking to Allah about guilty or we feel guilty and we asking forgiveness.
3 nights in the Ramadan is a very special night which in the Quaran says “one night equals with a thousand nights so any good things we are doing in this is counted like a thousand times so in this 3 nights there is lots of other prayer but they are not compulsory so it’s a good time we catchup every night we pray a hundred times of prayer the Namoz. When we do catchup we do the same things – in order from morning to evening.
Where do you pray?
“In the public, you don’t need a permission. In the public, wherever you want you can pray. I found out in Australia there is very respect, when we are at the park we are praying I saw people even not come close, walk from far away so not going to disturb us and I am really thankful for the Australian people understanding that.
At school or somewhere that is private we have to have permission from the landlord – if they don’t give permission or we are not asking our praying is not going to be accepted by God. Allah ask us respect them because land belongs to them, how we can just go there without their permission and we pray, so we have to get permission.
At the moment, technology is very easy everyone has a mobile they can find out the directions there is an app or they can find like a sunset and they can pray that way. If we are outside or the mobile does not have reception we see from where the sunrise, where the sunset so we pray that side.
If we are in a place and not sure which way we have to pray you can choose one way because Allah know what we mean. Even if you are travelling on the plane so you just pray if you can find the navigator which way the plane’s going you stand that way but plane still going maybe the direction has changed but it’s ok still you can continue your praying or like you are in the desert and you know you are in danger you still walking and praying”.
