RESEARCH: "The Narrative Construction of Muslim Prayer Experiences"

Abstract

This article presents a narrative analysis of 18 Muslims' prayer experiences. The results of the study showed that experiences of answered prayers are structured by collective narratives and refer to other texts in the religious tradition. The narratives have important social and individualizing functions that help them remain Muslims in modern society. The informants reported that they had experienced situations when they had prayed but did not receive what they requested. They did not, however, mediate any well-formed narratives about these experiences, primarily because of a lack of collective narratives structuring the event in this way. The analysis showed, furthermore, that the informants used four strategies in order to transform the experience of unanswered prayers into answered prayers. The analysis concludes that prayer experiences are fluid phenomena "located" in the interplay between individual, text, and context.