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Document Details : Title: Prostate and Erect Subtitle: Some Christian-Muslim Reflections on Religious Body Language Author(s): LEIRVIK, Oddbjørn Journal: Studies in Interreligious Dialogue Volume: 16 Issue: 1 Date: 2006 Pages: 29-40 DOI: 10.2143/SID.16.1.2013489 Abstract : This article investigates central aspects of religious body language in Islam and Christianity. Focusing his attention on prayer gestures, Leirvik analyses the semiotic relation between bowings (prostration and kneeling) and upright positions with hands lifted up. In the analysis of prostration as a transcultural gesture, perspectives from Judaism, Buddhism and secular humanism are also included. Instead of regarding prostration as something essentially Islamic, the author approaches the dialectic between prostrations and upright positions in prayer as an interreligious issue. In his historical and systematical analysis Leirvik indicates both liturgical, anthropological and theological implications of the dialectic between bowing down and standing up. |
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