I believe I have discovered a miracle of Islam.
The rapid spread of literacy it afforded its earliest , previously oral & unlettered converted peoples & nations is established by now. How thoroughly the diin of Allah instilled the skill of reading & writing into the previously disputing nations that it unified at an unprecedented rate. But in the modern century another peculiarity of the religion was researched that found a plummeting of cortisol & an extreme increase in theta & alpha brain waves in muslim subjects of 5 or more years of regular practice after they performed the mid day prayer. this is curious because Theta & Alpha waves are frequencies the brain tunes to in states of memorization, learning, dreaming, meditative focus, calm, & "flow". The study actually found that only 12 minutes of prayer daily was sufficient to sustain these optimal mental atmospheres, which is less than the prescribed 5 daily prayers. One last curious insight to notice before this leads ultimately to the subject I am striving for her & the profound interconnectedness of this would be: where Theta & Alpha waves are recorded anatomically in the brain. Theta in the hippocampus, one of the most recently evolved structures of our brain that distinguishes us from primates. & Alpha waves in the occipital which is also an anatomical novelty in our evolutionary becoming as humans; i.e. quite new on earth. Furthermore alpha waves are the first indicator of brain activity in fetuses.
Now returning to the idea of literacy & language learning, a study of theta & alpha waves in college students learning a foreign language showed that those without significant presence of these brain waves took an average of 3-5 years to master a language whereas highly abnormal subjects with constant theta & alpha waves during their waking states took 3-4 months with an 80 % retention rate per session without reviewing. With this in mind while considering the fast conversion rate of Muslims throughout history & until now (with prisoners in the States as an example of how quickly this occurs to a person) I consider this a miracle. That the prayer times & methods revealed to the prophet, upon whom be peace, were blooming into being these inner states of highly receptive, preceptive, & attuned concentration that opened the way for understanding the language that is used in the prayer & the language that acts as a medium or vessel for revelations from Allah. Profound.
This should not be the reason a Muslim prays however. Because the only motivation should be , ultimately, to know Allah, to surrender entirely, & to draw near to Allah rather than to gain some sort of worldly advantage. But this all goes to show tho how much is hidden in a religion beginning at its inception, much of which may never be known save what Allah subhannah wa ta ala wills.
الحمد لله سبحان وتعالى رب العالمين
لاَ يُحِيطُونَ بِشَيْءٍ مِنْ عِلْمِهِ إِلاَّ بِمَا شَاءَ وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاواتِ وَالأَرْضَ وَلاَ يَئُودُهُ حِفْظُهُمَا وَهُوَ الْعَلِيُّ الْعَظِيمُ
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