Anita Houck's Three Tools For Studying Religion

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According to Anita Houck’s Elements of Religion or TCREB, every religion has rituals and practices that can help create a connection to the transcendent. For Muslims, participating in the holy holiday of Ramadan is a way to connect to the transcendent. In Faiza Saleh Ambah series of articles published by The Christian Science Monitor Ambah explains her struggle with committing to Ramadan and getting connected to the transcendent. Throughout Ambah’s struggle with Ramadan, rituals have played an important element in in her experience of Ramadan and connecting her to the transcendent.
Rituals and practices are an element of TCREB from Houck’s Three Tools for Studying Religion. Houck’s TCREB chart, “Is a distillation of many different scholarly …show more content…

Each element plays a significant role in defining religion. As stated in Houck’s TCREB chart, “Rituals and practices are actions that people perform usually in a set way [and] usually at regular times [,] which allow members to connect to the transcendent.” Ramadan is a prime example of Houck’s definition of rituals. According to the glossary of World Religion in Dialogue, Ramadan is a ritual that occurs once every year and is when Muslims fast (127). It is a holiday that occurs around the same time. Ramadan is a very important holiday because fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam. In World Religion in Dialogue George-Tvrtković says there are five pillars of Islam and fasting during Ramadan is the forth pillar (George 90). In Ambah’s article she adds, “Fasting during Ramadan, the third pillar of Islam, is …show more content…

According to George - Tvrtković, the hajj is the fifth pillar of Islam and it is a pilgrimage that, “All Muslims who are financially and physically able to travel to Mecca during the month of the hajj are required to do at least once in a lifetime” (90). At the hajj, Ambah felt a great connection of the transcendent. As explained in Ambah’s articles, the five days of the pilgrimage were the most spiritual days of her life and she had never felt so connected to God before (3). She experienced the feeling of being connected to the transcendent and it was beautiful. Several weeks later, the feeling of “floating in God’s palm” was gone (Ambah 3). Ambah described feeling “spiritually abandoned” after the feeling of being connected to God “broke” (3). Ambah went on a spiritual journey and got connected to the transcendent in such a way that she did not want to lose the feeling again. As a result, she is having a hard time understanding Ramadan and committing to it. She doesn’t want to feel the feeling of something beautiful and then lose it in a matter of time. Despite being afraid of losing the feeling of being connected to God again, Ambah takes a step and commits to

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