I’ve been praying in Arabic for thirty years. Five times a day. The same words. The same verses. I know them by heart. I can recite them perfectly. But I don’t know what most of them mean.
My Arabic is functional. I can read the Quran. My pronunciation is decent. But understanding? That’s different. I’m reciting sounds I memorized as a child. Beautiful sounds. Sacred sounds. Sounds my father recited, my grandfather recited, going back generations. But they’re sounds I don’t actually comprehend.
Last week my daughter asked me what I was saying during prayer. She’s curious about everything lately. Asks why, what, how about everything. And I realized I couldn’t tell her. Not really. I know the general theme. Praise, submission, requests for guidance. But the specific words? The actual meaning of each verse I recite daily? I don’t know.
I told her it’s prayer to Allah. She said yes, but what are the words saying? I said it’s in Arabic. She said, “But you speak some Arabic, right?” I said yes. Then I mumbled something about tradition and told her to ask her mother.
Later that night I felt ashamed. My daughter asks what I’m saying to God and I can’t tell her because I don’t know myself.
This is what inheritance looks like. My father taught me these prayers. His father taught him. Going back centuries, someone in my family has recited these exact words. The chain feels sacred. Unbreakable. But somewhere along that chain, we stopped translating. We kept the sounds but lost the meaning.
Or maybe we never had the meaning. Maybe we’ve been reciting memorized phonetics for generations, trusting that the words work even without understanding them. Like a prescription we take without reading the label. We trust it’s medicine. We trust it helps. We never ask what’s actually in it.
I have a friend who converted to Islam as an adult. He learned Arabic properly. Studied the meanings. When he prays, he knows exactly what he’s saying. Sometimes I envy that. He chose this. He examined it. He understands it. I just inherited it.
But here’s what bothers me more than not understanding Arabic. I’ve never really questioned any of it. Not just the language. The beliefs themselves. The rituals. The rules. The entire worldview I was given as a child and accepted as truth without ever examining whether it’s actually true.
I was maybe four years old when I started learning about Allah. About heaven and hell. About right and wrong. About what happens when you die. I absorbed it all like I absorbed language. Automatically. Before I could think critically about anything. By the time I was old enough to analyze beliefs, these beliefs were already part of me. Already wired into my brain. Already forming my identity.
How do you examine something that’s been part of you since before you had choice? It’s like asking whether your native language is the correct language. It’s just the language you speak. The lens through which you see everything. The foundation of how you think.
My son is studying philosophy in university. He comes home sometimes with questions that make me uncomfortable. Why do we believe what we believe? What evidence do we have? How do we know our religion is right and others are wrong? What if we were born in a different country, a different family? Would we believe something completely different just as strongly?
I tell him not to overthink it. To have faith. To trust tradition. But his questions linger after he leaves the room. Because they’re good questions. Questions I’ve never allowed myself to ask.
The community I grew up in didn’t encourage questions. Questioning was disrespect. Doubt was dangerous. Curiosity was corruption. The proper stance was acceptance. Trust. Submission. Even the word Islam means submission. You’re supposed to submit, not analyze.
My religious teacher used to say that too much thinking leads people astray. That simple faith is better than complicated doubts. That the scholars have already figured everything out and our job is just to follow. Don’t question. Don’t examine. Don’t risk losing your faith by thinking too hard about it.
So I didn’t. I followed. I prayed. I fasted. I did everything I was taught without ever really choosing it. Without ever making it mine. The faith was inherited, not examined. Received, not discovered.
And it felt safe. For years it felt safe. I knew what I believed. Had answers to big questions. Belonged to a community that shared my worldview. Connected to my ancestors through shared practice. The unexamined faith provided certainty and belonging without requiring difficult work of conscious choice.
But lately something’s shifting. Maybe it’s getting older. Maybe it’s watching my kids develop their own minds. Maybe it’s just time catching up with avoidance. But the inherited certainty is starting to feel fragile. Like a house I’ve lived in my whole life but never checked the foundation.
What if the foundation isn’t solid? What if beliefs I’ve built my entire life around are wrong? What if I’m praying to nothing? Following rules that don’t matter? Organizing my life around concepts that aren’t true?
These thoughts terrify me. Not just because they question my faith. Because they question my identity. If these beliefs are wrong, who am I? Everything I think of as me—my values, my choices, my relationships—all built on this foundation. If the foundation crumbles, what happens to everything built on it?
My wife and I had dinner with her cousin last month. Her cousin left Islam a few years ago. The family barely speaks to her. At dinner she talked about how free she feels. How honest. How examining her inherited beliefs and choosing her own path was the hardest thing she’s ever done but also the most authentic.
Walking home, my wife was upset. Said her cousin was lost. Misguided. Led astray by Western education and bad influences. But I kept quiet. Because part of me envied her. The courage to examine instead of just accept. The willingness to risk everything—family approval, community belonging, ancestral connection—for intellectual honesty.
Could I do that? Could I really examine my beliefs knowing I might lose them? Knowing I might lose my family’s approval in the process? Knowing I might end up as the cautionary tale people whisper about?
I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m brave enough.
But I’m also not sure I can keep living with inherited certainty that’s starting to feel like inherited confusion. Reciting words I don’t understand. Following rules I’ve never questioned. Believing things I’ve never verified. Passing this same unexamined inheritance to my children.
My daughter asked what the prayers mean. That simple question opened something I’ve kept closed for decades. Because if I don’t know what I’m saying to God, do I even know God? If I’ve never examined what I believe, do I actually believe it? Or am I just going through motions programmed into me before I could choose?
Maybe mature faith requires conscious choice. Maybe the religion you inherit is different from religion you choose. Maybe beliefs you examine and decide to keep are more authentic than beliefs you never think about. Maybe faith that survives questioning is stronger than faith that’s afraid of questions.
But the examination process is terrifying. It threatens everything. Identity, belonging, family relationships, community standing, ancestral connection. Everything I am is built on these inherited beliefs. Questioning them feels like questioning existence itself.
Yet not questioning might be worse. Living with beliefs I never chose. Reciting words I don’t understand. Following traditions whose origins I’ve never investigated. Teaching my children faith I’ve never made my own. Pretending certainty I don’t actually feel.
Last night I tried something different. Before prayer, I looked up translations. Found out what the Arabic words actually mean. Read them in English. And the prayer felt different. More conscious. More intentional. Less like recitation, more like conversation.
One verse stopped me. It’s verse I’ve recited thousands of times. It asks God to guide us to the straight path. The path of those who have received Your favor. Not the path of those who have gone astray.
I’ve been saying those words my whole life without really thinking about them. But last night I thought: What path? What does straight mean? Who decides who’s astray? Am I on the straight path just because I inherited this direction? Or do I need to choose the direction consciously?
I don’t have answers. Maybe there are no answers. Maybe examining inherited beliefs just leads to more questions. Maybe the certainty I grew up with was illusion and accepting uncertainty is part of growing up spiritually.
But I think I need to try. Need to start examining instead of just accepting. Understanding instead of just reciting. Choosing instead of just inheriting. Not necessarily to reject what I was given. But to make it mine. To own my beliefs instead of just carrying them.
My daughter will ask more questions. My son will bring home more philosophical challenges. And instead of shutting them down with “don’t question,” maybe I’ll say “let’s examine this together.” Maybe we’ll lose certainty. Maybe we’ll lose some beliefs. Maybe we’ll make the family uncomfortable.
But maybe we’ll find authentic faith. The kind that’s chosen, not just received. Examined, not just assumed. Understood, not just memorized. Maybe we’ll learn what we’re actually saying when we pray. And maybe prayer will become conversation instead of performance. Connection instead of recitation.
Tonight I’ll pray in Arabic. But I’ll also pray in understanding. Words I’ve examined. Beliefs I’ve questioned. Faith that’s mine, not just inherited. And maybe, for the first time in thirty years, I’ll actually know what I’m saying to God.
