Salat
- salat: (Arabic) prayer, specifically the Five Daily Prayers which Muslim men are enjoined to perform
Commentary
They say their salat, the madiens' prayer to the messiager of His Nabis, prostitating their selfs eachwise and combinedly. Fateha, fold the hands. Be it honoured, bow the head. May thine evings e'en be blossful! Even of bliss! As we so hope for ablution. For the sake of the farbung and of the scent and of the holiodrops. Amems.
A pause. Their orison arises misquewhite as Osman glory, ebbing wasteward, leaves to the soul of light its fading silence (allahlah lahlah lah!), a turquewashed sky.
J. S. Atherton: Islam and the Koran in Finnegans Wake
"The first sura of the Koran, Fatihah, has to be recited every time a Muslim says his prayers. There is a description of this being done at the point where this sura is named in Finnegans Wake ... Folding the hands, bowing the head, and prostrating oneself are well-known attitudes of Mohammedan prayer. "Ablution", which must precede such prayer, is mentioned next. Then the prayer begins ... The phrase in parentheses ["(allahlah lahlah lah!)"] is an echo of the final words of the Muslim call to prayer: La ilaha ill-Allah, "There is no God but God". The titles of several other suras are woven into the same passage: "The Messenger" is Sura 77, and Naba is the Arabic title of Sura 78. "Light" is Sura 24; its Arabic title Nur iss used by Joyce elsewhere (FW 310.24), together with an allusion to the contents of the chapter..."
