herve wrote:shafique wrote:Islam has been ahead of it's time when it enjoined cleanliness and hygiene and talked of agents that are harmful to humans, but are invisible to the naked eye. One can choose to believe that these agents are evil spirits, or what nowadays we'd call germs. (The prayer is actually seeking protection from all 'offensive' and 'wicked' things.)
Shafique
Islam ahead of its time,
, sure that s why mouslims are still stuck in the 7th century.
you did not read the quran, the prayer, is about protection against males and females devils,
your germ explanation won't fly al shafique, the quran speaks of male and female devils, period. it has nothing do to with germs. so tell me al shafique E coli is it a girl or a guy?
anyways your bigotry is entertaining
LOL - you're a sucker for punishment herve.
'It has nothing to do with germs'! Nice one. Next you'll be trying to convince of talking donkeys and talking ants!
The Hadith which contain the prayers are:
When you enter a lavatory say, “O Allah, I seek refuge in Thee from wicked and noxious things.”… (Sahih Muslim, 3.0729)
When entering a toilet, say a prayer: O’ Allah I seek refuge with you from all offensive and wicked things (evil deeds and evil spirits)… (Sunaan Nasai, 1.19)
(Allahumma in-nee a'oothu bika minal khubu-thee wal khabaa ith)
Don't you believe in germs?
Long after Muslims were washing each day, Europeans decided that it was unhealthy to wash - indeed wrongly thinking that water and cleaning could lead to disease:
Paradoxically, it was fear of disease, including syphilis and the Black Death, that put water out of favour, as Virginia Smith explains in “Clean: A History of Personal Hygiene and Purity”. A particular danger was thought to lie in public baths, reintroduced to Europe by crusaders returning from Turkey and the Arab world, and which had become popular in medieval Germany and Switzerland, as well as Florence, Paris and to a lesser extent London. Medical opinion had it that such exposure to hot water could open up the skin and let the plague, or other ills, in. Moralists also denounced depraved behaviour in the baths. By 1538, François I had closed the French bath houses. Henry VIII shut the “stews” of Southwark in 1546.
Thus began an era when rich folk and poor rubbed along with dirt just fine. Even private baths were judged suspect. According to meticulous notes kept by Jean Héroard, the French court physician, the young Louis XIII, born in 1601, was not given a bath until he was almost seven. Throughout the 17th century, writes Georges Vigarello, in “Le Propre et le Sale”, it was thought that linen had special properties that enabled it to absorb sweat from the body. For gentlemen, a wardrobe full of fine linen smocks or undershirts to enable a daily change was the height of hygienic sophistication. Racine and Molière owned 30 each.
...
http://www.economist.com/node/15108662I thought you'd like the reference to French nobility and their lack of personal hygiene.
Cheers,
Shafique