(WR) Muhammad and Re-Sacralization

As you think about the many facets of re-sacralization, it's worth considering that at least some of what Muhammad was attempting to do (e.g.: prostrating in prayer three, then five times a day) was an effort to make everyday life part of a sacred experience. Perhaps he lacks Confucius' caution about mysterious beings, and perhaps also there's something heavy-handed and apparently arbitrary about many of his rules and regulations, especially from the later period in Medina. These can make his program seem somewhat less appealing. But the impulse -- to unify a community in just, mindful relations, and to reconstruct the individual as habitually attentive to principles -- are at least analogous.