Some have noted a link between prayer and play.

In his 1938 book Homo Ludens, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga drew the parallel, remarking that both prayer and play take place in a separate reality than that of the mundane world. He called this alternate space the “magic circle,” noting that both prayer and play are governed by sets of rules specific to the ritual or game.

He identifies five characteristics of play, all of which strike us as immediately recognizable within at least the Islamic concept of ritual prayer:

1. Play is free, and is in fact freedom.
2. Play is not “ordinary” or “real” life.
3. Play is distinct from “ordinary” life both as to locality and duration.
4. Play creates order, is order. Play demands order, absolute and supreme.
5. Play is connected with no material interest, and no profit can be gained from it.

Huizinga, 1938

As in play, we escape the confines of the material world through prayer, the realm of supplication being effectively limitless. For God can do all things, and through our adherence to His mandates, through our recognition of His Plan’s perfection (absolute and supreme), we are coaxed into recognizing His Will in all things.

Since our inception, Dust and Tribe has insisted on the primacy of play. We brought people outside to do things: hiking, climbing, rafting, surfing, backpacking, and paddling among them. We created an itinerary, established rules and expectations, and invited men and women to prioritize our “game” over the myriad “obligations” they were using as excuses to keep themselves from playing.

Interestingly, these are the same excuses we use to keep from ritual prayer.

We’re busy. We’re tired. We can always do it later. We have other responsibilities that cannot wait. Prayer is pointless, and besides, we’re good people and God is Merciful.

For Dust and Tribe, playing is praying. Play is a celebration of creation, a physical offering of self in gratitude to the Creator for having blessed us with health, vitality, and so wondrous a place as the natural world in which to express our possibility.

Here at Camp One, we regularly witness play among our livestock. As in humans, it is the younger animals where this is most spontaneous and obvious. Animals are not immune to the phenomena of shifting responsibilities. Gamboling about is all well and good if you do not have the responsibility of hiding from predators or stalking prey. As long as the elders are providing milk or protection, the youth will have an excess of energy that they will expend in the form of games played on their own or with one another.

All of this sporting about is quite vital as it helps to cement group dynamics and establish important hierarchies.

In the words of Huizinga, play creates order.

And, in its most perfect realization, prayer is play. We enter the ritual, the magic circle, through costume, perfume, and the articulation of linguistic formulas that we have memorized for the purpose. We assume a character, our aspirational self, the thing we most want to be, endeavoring to immerse ourselves in the role.

Fools will see in this framing a trivialization of religion.

These are the people remote from creation, lost in their heads. Their grandiosity blinds them and they cannot see that God has created animals such that they are a nation like unto your own (Q6:38). Islamic cosmology does not allow for animals to act on other than their fitra, an instinctual deference to the Divine. Their play cannot be anything other than worship.

This is all the proof we need, though as humans we are often challenged to recognize our fitra. Our tool in doing so is the formulation of intention.

Unlike our animal counterparts, we must choose to play.

Those who do not pay an exceptionally high physical and spiritual price. Life devolves into drudgery, challenges go unmet, bodies weaken, and existence loses meaning.

Choose the game.

Play it well and often.

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