Indiana Interchurch Center Explores the Ways of Worship Around the World

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS
By TAHLIB

Islamic prayer beads from the mystical jallamban tree

INDIANA---Directly from Touba, Senegal, a set of muslim prayer beads is on display at Indiana Interchurch Center's new exhibition, "The Ways We Worship." "Roughly three-quarters of the global population lives where overall levels of religious restrictions or hostilities were high or very high in 2012" said Angelina Theodorou, of Pew Research Project. "Women were harassed because of religious dress in nearly a third of countries in 2012 (32%), up from a quarter in 2011 (25%) and less than one-in-ten (7%) in 2007." Using religious artifacts from Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddism, the exhibit intends to offer a glimpse of the different forms of worship throughout Indiana, and to help ease religious tensions.

The Senegalese prayer beads are paired with a leather necklace featuring a photo of Cheikh Amadou Bamba Mbacke, a religious leader who met the prophet Muhammed in his dream, and together the beads and the necklace are regularly worn during worship at the holy city of Touba. The wood of the prayer beads is considered a talisman of magical protection in Africa. It is from this wood that sufimaster, Serigne Touba Khadim Rassoul Ahmadou Bamba (SAWS), carved his pen. The beads, kouross jallamban, are flat, because the greatest disciple of Serigne Touba, Mame Cheik Ibra Fall, prayed on them so much that the normally rounded beads of most Sufi orders became flat from the relentless clicking together. They are a protection of saints and cheikhs.