A Look at Islamic Customs: Art, Music, Traditions

The Middle East is a place with culture, different traditions and different religions.Three major religions in Middle East are Christianity, Judaism and Islam. But today I am going to focus and talk more about Islam as a religion and discuss facts about it. Muslims live a special life with special types of Music, special Rules and very special kinds of Art, because for many religions these are all about culture, but to muslims these are more about having connection with God and sharing their beliefs. Islamic music is more named of a religious music. In Middle East music is divided in Egyptian music, Turkish music, Iranian music and Arabic music. A long time ago when music was in its beginnings and it was just invented, it very much helped with trade. Music in those times brought people together and made trade more attractive. People started earning from it and they loved it because it had to do with religion and tradition. Music not just on those times, but now too is used in mosques as a prayer to God. The muezzin sing songs and prays to God with music and not just words. A very special thing about muslim music is that they do not make music with instruments like a lot of others, but contrariwise they just sing with natural voice and give advices about daily life and how we should live our lives in the right way, without doing bad things, believing in God, loving others, respecting the older ones, not stealing, not lying, because these things are all stuff that disrespect Islam as a religion and according to muslims make it less valuable.

Muslims appreciate their religion so much, so they do all what Quran says. Quran is a religious book which tells all about Islam. It talks about its rules, the relationships between people, the way of dressing, what muslims can and cannot eat or drink and much more stuff that I am going to talk about now. One of the rules of Islam that affects really their daily life is the relationships between men and women at any age. In Middle East and where all other places that muslim people live, dating is not that easy and not important like it is for example in United States of America.

Dating for muslims is really important and if you date someone you should most probably marry them. After you marry someone than you can have any sexual interactions with them, but before marriage touching, hugging and kissing is very limited according to muslim rules and God’s wishes. Also another thing that affects people with these beliefs is the way they dress and what they wear. A traditional cloth that they have to wear is called a “hajib”. There, both men and women wear that kind of costume because women especially are not allowed to show skin or hair. That is because they find it disrespectful and not honored. Also women cannot go in public without the “hajib” because other men should not see them without it, except of her husband and other family members. Something else that impacts them and their life, is what they drink and eat. For example muslims cannot drink alcochol. There are multiple reasons for that, and I definetely agree with those reasons. One of the reasons is that you forget about others because you do not know what you are doing. The second one is that drinking liquor is not a good example for the children to see because they are afraid they are going to do so too when they grow up. The third reason is that you become addicted to it and you cannot stop it.

And the last but not least one is because it can make you do bad things because you are not on your right mind, so that thing is so against Islam. Another thing Islam does not accept is eating pork. The reason for that is because they find it not clean enough because of toxins that it has, the bacterias and because it lays in mud. They say it is very harmful for human’s health, but in Quran it is written that they would make an exception if you would be starving and there would be nothing else to eat except of pork,you could eat it and not starve and die. Now enough of talking about muslim rules, now we are going to talk about muslim Art. Muslim Art does not want to show just physical appearance, they want to show more of its meaning and how it brings us closer to God (Allah). They do not think sculptures are a very good kind of art and neither are paintings (according to muslim thoughts). But they really like Geometry as a type of Art to use. The logic of that is that shapes are infinite.