Woken this morning by the call of the muezzin, blaring out “Allahu akbar” on a microphone at 5.30a.m. This got me thinking further about the similarity Pkv between Islam and football. The muezzin will call people to prayers five times a day every day, at sunrise, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and night. The timetable for these calls can be found in the daily papers. A more flexible timetable is adopted for football but details can also be found in the paper, for many everyday people participate in this form of religion through the television. Our TV listings page will show, Soccer AM, Football Focus, Match of the Day any live games and late night football from overseas. Other more devout followers, will also turn to the fixtures section and answer the call, sometimes by travelling vast distances.
Islam means ‘submission’ and the people are expected to observe the five pillars which form the basis of the religion. The first pillar is to publicly declare ‘there is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his Prophet’. In football we will tell anyone that our team is better than anyone else’s, no matter what our current league position is.
The second pillar, is to answer the call of the muezzin, and pray five times a day. (I answered this mornings call by asking him to be quiet). In football it is important to get your daily fix and an innovation of recent times has been the great ball in the sky – the satellite which provides non stop information.
The third pillar is to give alms for the propogation of Islam and to help the needy. In football this can be done by paying exorbitant amounts of money in the form of either match day admission fees or …