Abiding Time

Time gives us structure, it measures each day sunrise to sunset, from week to month to year. It provides us a sense of relative place according to the movement of bodies large and small. The physical concept only applies to thinking creatures. Otherwise, it is simply increments of physical change multiplied by how much change. Times is, above all, a cause of order, so that we know how to adjust our activities based upon constraints within a change according to day light.

Similarly, Muslims, as my friend from Morocco explains, respect a lunar calendar according to which Muslims are asked to pray by the Qu'ran. Prayer times are determined per region of the world according to the movement of the sun, not a clock. This has been a traditionally a constant determinant of prayer times for Muslims and is more specifically calculated by factors like the Earth's orbit, tilt, and rotation.

Adapting to the "American" lifestyle by which Americans life their daily lives is difficult for Muslim people because a number of inherent factors of the lifestyle: work, leisure, meal time, and sleep time are extremey irregular and work can often overwhelm the others. No time is widely allowed to employees in the U.S. for religious ritual. For example, Dell Computer fired 30 Muslims for praying in the workplace (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5554/is_200503/ai_n21850388). It seems from some research that the Workplace Religious Freedom Act was last considered by congress in 2007. The act would give employees whose religion mandates prayer the right to reasonably practice religious rituals as long as they do not "impose an “undue hardship” upon the employer" (http://www.ou.org/public/statements/bg/wrfa.htm).