islamic prayer and OCD

Fig. 1.  State/Transition diagram representation of the OCD pattern.

                         II.    Algorithm/Pattern extraction from cognitive/behavioral activity

In this chapter, we propose an algorithmic representation of OCD, and islamic prayer. To design these representation, we use the UML (Unified Modeling Langage) notation, which provides several diagrams of representating algorithms and pattern, such us state/transitions diagrams, or activity diagrams.

As result of a specific (internal or external) stimulus, a distress and anxiety reaction or an obsession is triggered, these two ones are active in a both ways, the distress/anxiety reactin result by a ritualized behavior (compulsion) to help give a temporary relief of the distress/anxiety state, nevertheless, this relief reinforce the compulsion. (Obsessive–compulsive disorder: an integrative genetic and neurobiological perspective, David L. Pauls,             Amitai Abramovitch,         Scott L. Rauch    & Daniel A. Geller, AffiliationsCorresponding authors, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 15, 410–424 (20 may 2014).

Another consideration to take into account, is the relation of causality between « culpability » (as an stimulus) and the « distress/anxiety ».

As described in the previous figure, we distinguish between two paths corresponding to the two possibilities of stimulus. In the first case, an external stimulus leads to a distress and/or anxiety state, then to obsession. In the second case, an internal stimulus leads to obsession, then to distress and/or anxiety (due to culpability feeling). Both cases result by a ritualized behaviour (compulsion) (state C), and to a temporary relief from anxiety and/or distress, BUT this later one will LOOP to state (C) causing a reinforcement of state (C). As a result, the state/transition diagram has no FINAL state, and will loop indefinetly, this is litterally a state diagram disorder and explain the obsessive-compulsive disorder appellation, and which explain the complexity of curing such disorder due to the difficulty of escaping such the loop described previously.

A.    Islamic prayer « as-salat »

                In this section, we will give a state of the art description of the islamic prayer « as-salat ».

                As long as there are no complete academic (and methodological) description of the islamic paper that are available, and regarding the religious (and important) aspect of such activity, we prefer to use the Wikipedia description, which, as far as we are concerned, is a open access (read / write / modify) public encyclopedia. On the other hand, we choose to detail the « maliki » way of performing « as-salat » since it is the common way in the nord-african geographical region (among many others). We present hereafter this description reviewed and corrected.

                Fisrt, there is some considerations to be done :

1) The first prayer performed in islam was a « dohr » (dhor, zuhr) which is a mid-day prayer to be performed when the sun is at the middle of the sky.

2) The first prayer to be performed every day, is the « fajr » (or sobh) prayer which is the sunrise prayer, which must be done when the sun just rises.

3) There are five obligatory prayers (fajr, dohr, asr, maghreb, icha), which will be considered in our study.

                Second, in the scenario that we propose to represent the islamic prayer “as-salat”, we will consider beginning with the “fajr” prayer, and finishing with the “icha” prayer of the same day :

(first state) Fajr –> (finishing state) Icha.

                First of all, the muslim should wait for one of the three possibilities :

A. the “apparition of the sun” (first light in the night sky), to attest that this is the time for sun rise, and so for the “fajr” prayer.

B. the first “adhan” of the day, and so for the “fajr” prayer.

C. the corresponding time of “fajr” prayer, considering a calculation of the prayer time.

                We can consider, that there is three triggers (visual, auditive, cognitive) for the prayer time.

First element for the representation : Trigger for prayer time