These include almsgiving...

These include almsgiving, in addition to the religious tax (zakat) pro mulgated by the Shari'ah, petitioning God for the acceptance of something asked in a prayer by giving to the poor, arranging special religious tables whose food is given to the poor, and many other practices of the kind which carry religion to the intimate activities of everyday life. The recitation of the Holy Quran is a nte par excellence and it is a basic Shi'ite practice as much as a Sunni one.

The Quran is chanted during special occasions such as weddings, funerals and the like, as well as at different moments of the day and night during one's daily'routine. In addition the Shi'ites place much emphasis upon the reading of prayers of great beauty in Arabic from the prophetic hadith and from the sayings of Imams as con tained in the Nahj al-baiaghah, Sahifah sajjadiyah, Usul al-kafi etc. Some of these prayers, like the Jawshan-i kabir and Kumayl, are long and take several hours.

They are recited only by the espe cially pious, en certain nights of the week, particularly Thursday night and the nights of Ramadan. Other believers remain satisfied with shorter prayers. But the whole practice of reciting litanies and prayers of different kinds constitutes an important aspect of the rites of Muslims and their religious devotions in both the Shi'ite and Sunni worlds.

And in both worlds these devotional prayers and litanies come from the works of the saints, who in the Shi'ite world are identified with the Imams and the Household of the Prophet and in the Sunni world with Sufism in general. Previous…