Muslims of central and western Asia use prayer rugs to cover the ground while they pray.
The rugs feature a distinctive arch-shaped design, a prayer niche, or mihrtib, on one end of the carpet.
The mihrab must be pointed toward Mecca while the person is praying.
The official name of the celibate sect the Shakers is the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Derived from the Quakers, the “Shaking Quaker” sect was established in America in 1774 by Ann Lee and reached its height, in the 1840s with a membership of 6,000. Shaker refers to the involuntary movements made…
Yes, a raven and a dove. In Genesis 8:7-8, they are the birds Noah sent out to see if the waters had begun to subside: And he sent forth a raven, which went to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to…
Gehenna is the Greek form of the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, or “Valley of Hinnom.” This was a valley west and south of Jerusalem where children were sacrificed in flames to the Ammonite god Moloch from the tenth through seventh centuries B.C. In Jewish and Christian thought, it became another name for the place where the…
The secret fraternal order of Free and Acceptable Masons has its origins in communities of actual stoneworkers, the masons who built cathedrals in the Middle Ages. Eventually, lodges in need of new members started admitting non-masons, and from these lodges modern Freemasonry developed.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that cleanliness is next to godliness. It came from John Wesley (1703-1791), the British theologian who founded Methodism.
Peter, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, was the first bishop of the Christian church in Rome, the office now referred to as the papacy. After Peter’s execution by the Romans in A.D. 67, Linus became bishop of Rome. Anacletus (also known as Cletus) succeeded him in about A.D. 76.