Prabhupāda: ...prayer, five times?
Guest: Well, it's the Islamic prayer five times a day but she is compressing it to three times. It's the same prayer.
Prabhupāda: Why?
Guest: Because they are permitted to say two of the prayers at noon and two of the prayers in the evening at one time, rather than spreading them through the afternoon and ...
Prabhupāda: Why are they disobeying the order of Mohammed?
Guest: Yes, they follow. It's essentially the same practice as the majority.
Prabhupāda: Yes, you cannot amend on the words of Mohammed if you are a true Muslim.
Guest: I don't think they have meant to amend it, its just that...
Prabhupāda: Now why? There was five now they have made three. (indistinct) You cannot do that.
Guest: They maintain that, that Ali, that this was the practice of Ali. That Ali prayed at noon in the afternoon.
Guest: Ali is a representative of Mohammed.
Guest: He's the brother, brother-in-law, the son-in-law.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: Ali.
Prabhupāda: Ali, Ali.
Guest: He was...
Prabhupāda: Ali Hussein.
Guest: Hussein is his son. Ali is the cousin and the son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed. But can they feel the grace of Kṛṣṇa within this framework?
Prabhupāda: Hm?
Guest: Within the framework of their dietary laws and their ah, in opening up the experience of Kṛṣṇa to them?
Prabhupāda: No. If one wants to follow Koran, let him follow strictly that. No halfway (indistinct).
Guest: Then preaching in Iran should be essentially to people who have fallen away from their traditional path.
Prabhupāda: Yes. Everyone is fallen. They are simply amending, concoction. That is not good. Why they should amend? Mohammed presented himself in what relationship with God?
Guest: With God? He presented himself as the last expression of the divine revelation in the West.
Prabhupāda: No, what was his relationship? Just like Christ, he presented himself as the son of God. So what is the position of Mohammed?
Guest: He presented himself as a man, was considered by Muslims to be the perfect man.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Guest: And ah, he was the perfect expression of the divine manifestation in human terms. He was not a divine figure as Christ or Kṛṣṇa. He was a, ah, simply a man, and ah, he was the mouthpiece of the ah, divine word.
Prabhupāda: What is the meaning of Allah?
Guest: It means God, the greatest.
Prabhupāda: Greatest.
Guest: Yes, God as being the superlative of (indistinct).
Prabhupāda: Eh? Mohammed is the greatest? No, he's subordinate?
Guest: No. In fact, Muslims object to their religion being called Mohammedanism because it implies that they worship Mohammed. Whereas in fact they feel that they go straight to God, to Allah, which Mohammed is simply a messenger.
Prabhupāda: That's good.
Guest: And they call their religion Islam, which means submission.
Prabhupāda: That's very good.
Guest: The Muslim is he who submits.
Prabhupāda: Then God is the greatest and we are infinite, finite, limited, we are not greatest.
Guest: Yes.
Prabhupāda: And our business is to serve Him. What is that?
Guest: Our business is to serve Him? Precisely it was said last night...
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: Our business is to satisfy. There is a tradition, there is a body of forty traditions, which are called the sacred traditions. One of which says, these are the words of God as enunciated through Mohammed, one of them saying that the more you strive towards Me...
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: ...the more you love Me, the closer I come to you.
Prabhupāda: Then the ultimate goal is how to love God.
Guest: Yes.
Prabhupāda: That is our philosophy. sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhokṣaje (SB 1.2.6). Premā pumartho mahān. This is the highest goal of life, how one has developed his love for God. And Bhāgavata says that is first-class religion which trains the followers how to love God and serve Him. That is first-class religion. Then Islam is Vaisnalam in crude form, like the Christians (indistinct) if they are sane man. I suggested that there are many churches vacant, if they give us these churches, we shall install Deity, Gaurasundara, Nitāi-Gaura and Pañca-tattva, and along with them we can worship Jesus Christ. Similarly, we can do Mohammed. But they are against this Deity worship. Yes?
Guest: Yes.
Prabhupāda: Mohammedans?
Guest: Yes, with that sort of expression.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: And yet amongst the Sufi poets there is...
Prabhupāda: (indistinct) is also expression, form is also expression.
Guest: Yes.
Prabhupāda: But they do not understand.
Guest: But the Sufi's do because the Sufi poets...
Prabhupāda: They have got form, worship, the Sufis?
Guest: They don't worship form as such, but they ah, they speak of it in the poetry. They say ah...in one point (indistinct) There is a meeting between (indistinct) and his spiritual master. And he asked the spiritual master (unknown language). I asked, He asked what was this current, this chain of idols that we must worship? And he replied, "So that my heart might, might mourn, lament, the dark night."
Prabhupāda: The dark night?
Guest: The dark night of ignorance...
Prabhupāda: Oh, darkness.
Guest: ...of separation from God. So that they use the form of expression, worship...
Prabhupāda: Separation, how it is possible? Separation is expressed when there is separation between man to man, man to woman. First, otherwise what is the meaning of separation?
Guest: Separation from his divine...
Prabhupāda: Yes, then it must be person. They do not believe in the Personality of Godhead?
Guest: They believe, the Sufis, see the personality of Ali.
Prabhupāda: No, I am not talking of the Sufis, I am talking of the original Islam.
Guest: The Sufis claim to be the original process.
Prabhupāda: Do they, all the Muslims accept them?
Devotee 2: There are about 780 different schools of Islam, different ideas they have.
Prabhupāda: You have to take the original, otherwise mislead.
Guest: I think the original path must be found in Sufism, it can be because that is the essence...
Prabhupāda: If the original path is followed, why it is named Sufism?
Guest: Because there were those who had fallen away from it.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: There are those who had fallen away from it. Just as in the Hindu...
Prabhupāda: Who has fallen, Islam or the Sufis?
Guest: I think the formalists have fallen away like the jñānīs in Hinduism. Just as there is a dispute between the Śaivites and the Vaiṣṇavites.
Prabhupāda: Who has fallen? The original Islam or the Sufis?
Guest: The Sufis are the original Muslims.
Prabhupāda: Huh?
Guest: The Sufis are the original Muslims.
Prabhupāda: Sufis or (indistinct).
Devotee: Sufis are the original ah...
Prabhupāda: They are original cult?
Devotee: Yes, the Sufis.
Prabhupāda: Before Mohammed?
Guest: No, springing from Mohammed.
Prabhupāda: Then how you can say it is original.
Guest: Yes, it is original. All the schools of law they develop...
Prabhupāda: If it is original, why it is named different?
Guest: Because there are those that have fallen away from it and they are the ones who use this name. The Sufis don't use this name for themselves, it's used by others who wish to condemn them.
Prabhupāda: What is the meaning of Sufism, literal meaning?
Guest: Well, Sufism in a sense is ah, what bhaktism is in the Hindu context.
Prabhupāda: Bhakti means to offer service to God. Does it mean?
Guest: Oh, absolutely!
Prabhupāda: Then if God is to be served, then He must be a person, otherwise where is the question of serving?
Guest: Well, the Sufis do see that, the personal aspect of the Lord.
Prabhupāda: Unless one is person, how can I serve him? I cannot serve the air or the sky. I must serve a person. Love does not exist in the sky or in the air. There must be a person, man or woman, it doesn't matter. Otherwise, where there is love? Whom to love?
Guest: The Sufis find love in these figures. For example, the Sufis in (indistinct) through the face of a beautiful woman.
Prabhupāda: Face of beautiful woman, then the materialists also find.
Guest: It's a material aspect, actually.
Prabhupāda: Therefore, Islam religion, (indistinct) reject it (indistinct). As soon as they think of form, they think of this material form, beautiful face of woman. That is degradation. Therefore, we are strict not to conceive material form. That is Vedic conception. Apāni-pādo javano grahitā. "He has no legs, no hands." This is denying the form. Next he says, Vedas says, javana grahitā. "He can accept whatever you offer to Him." That means He has, God has, no material form, but He has form, otherwise how He can accept it? How I can understand by love? So, therefore the original Islam the form is not accepted. That is Vedic description, form and formless. Formless means no material form and form means spiritual form, simultaneous. Just like I am, you are, I am within the body, but I am not this body. This form, I am not I am, but what from the form of the body has come into existence? Because I have got form. The sweater has got hand, because I have got hand. The sweater is the covering. If I haven't got form, then how the sweater has got hand, the pant has got leg? But the pant practically is not the leg, the real leg is within the pant. Similarly, this is not my form, this is like pant, leg of the pant or hand of the coat. Real form is within. Asmin dehe. That is not material form. If the real form I could see, you could see, then there would be no controversy, but they cannot see. Therefore, they say "formless". If it is formless then how the outward form comes about? How it can be? The tailor makes the coat because the man has got form. As the coat has got hand, so it is concluded that the man for whom the coat is made he has got form. How you can say without form? The difficulty is that we can see the form of the coat but we cannot see the form of the man. That is my defect in the eyes, not that the God is formless. God is not formless.