Its an interesting predicament: Muslim by birth take on the religion of their parents, and lead Muslim lives largely because of their genealogy. Religion by inheritance. They know how to read the Quran because they were sent to religious afternoon school at the mosques from a young age, or they were taught by their parents. They know how to pray, and also the basic and general rights and wrongs of Islam. Generally speaking, they lead good, Muslim lives, and they in turn ensure their children are brought up as good Muslims too.
It seems terribly ideal, but there is something wrong in the picture. I wonder, at any point, do any of them take a moment, have a moment of self-awareness and ask themselves, or anyone else for that matter, "Why am i doing this? Why do i pray? Why do i fast? Why am i discouraged from pee-ing standing up?"
When we learn about the rites, rituals and practice of Islam, we mostly do so at a very young age. The ability to ask reasonable, critical questions at that age is limited. Similarly, the ability to understand the responses given to us by the ustaz will also be limited. Often, ustazs (male religious teacher) or ustazahs (female religious teacher) will answer meant to scare us into submission (thus stopping the questioning), not because they don't know the proper answer, but because they realize that as a small child, its difficult to understand the logic of Islam.
Me: Why must i pray?
Ustaz: Because if you don't, you'll go to Hell.
Me: Oh.
From the Ustaz's perspective, that's a short, satisfying conclusion to the discussion. Much more preferred to the other scenario:
Me: Why must i pray?
Ustaz: Because its one of the Five Pillars of Islam.
Me: Why is it one of the Five Pillars of Islam?
Ustaz: Because it is.
Me: But why?
Ustaz: ...
Imagine this scenario x 50 screaming kids in the classroom, and you can imagine why the ustaz would prefer to take the easy way out.
How many adults would make the effort to independently search for the answers to the questions they made when they were young? Very few, i would suspect. The reason being, humans are a creature of habit. Once its a habitual activity (i.e. prayer), it almost becomes pointless to wonder the reason why its done. Furthermore, at some point of our religious training, we're also probably told that too many questions is bad, and Islam is about acceptance and faith. To an extent, that's true: religion is about faith. You believe because you want to, not because you needed to be convinced of its truth.
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